Rough Winds Do Shake
by Second Star On The Left
Summary: In which Willas wraps a cloak of green and gold around Sansa's shoulders, Garlan is truly Gallant, and the Tyrells live up to their words. AU.
1. Chapter 1

Margaery writes of long limbs, fiery hair, eyes as blue as the noonday sky.

Loras writes of shy smiles, gentle courtesies, a sweet voice.

Grandmother writes of guarded warmth, bruised kindness, hidden intelligence.

What Willas gets when Sansa Stark slides down from her horse is a girl, a broken girl with shadowed eyes and so much grief in the line of her shoulders that he can hardly find any words to say to her beyond a falsely cheerful greeting, because he is utterly horrified at just how small and hurt she is behind the careful mask of manners and the almost-real smile.

He catches Margaery's gaze, a gaze just as calculating and scheming as Grandmother's, if a little better guarded, and his sister seems to understand just how furiously angry he is with the deception. He still forces himself to be polite to Lady Sansa, offering her his arm and leading her into the castle with as light a smile as he can produce.

Loras, at least, told him the truth – Sansa's answering smile _is_ shy, her courtesies _are_ gentle and her voice _is_ sweet, but Margaery and Grandmother lied outright when they told him that she was a woman. Sansa is a girl, regardless of having flowered, and he already feels guilty at the knowledge that within a week he will be taking her to wife, that he will be made to bed her even though he knows full well she is not prepared in any way for such a thing.

Because Willas has as little choice in the matter as Sansa – his father has made great efforts to remove his crippled son as heir to Highgarden, and a condition of his marrying Sansa is that Father will no longer consider pushing Garlan ahead in the line of succession.

Willas' marriage prospects have not been so hopeful as they should have been with his status as heir to Highgarden and the Reach, and to marry a Stark of Winterfell, even if she is little more than a girl, is better than to not marry at all.

* * *

He barely sees his betrothed in the week leading up to their wedding save at dinner each night, which is always shared with Margaery, Mother and Grandmother – it would be made more bearable by Garlan's presence, he thinks, but of course his brother is allowed to romance his lovely lady wife away from the rest of the family.

Sansa is reserved, keeping her eyes lowered unless addressed directly and even then answers barely enough to be polite. Willas watches carefully as Margaery tries to coax Sansa into conversation about this knight and that lady, the way she might speak with Megga or Alla, but the more Margaery speaks of the Red Keep the further into herself Sansa seems to retreat.

"Mayhaps tomorrow, we might take a turn about some of the smaller gardens?" he suggests quietly three nights before their wedding, while Grandmother and Mother are arguing loudly over some small detail of the wedding feast and Margaery is attempting to forge peace between them. "Highgarden is famed for its beauty, after all, and you have seen so little of it, my lady."

Her eyes are flat and shielded when she smiles, empty of any true warmth, but she nods graciously. He wonders what she is truly thinking, whether or not she actually likes the idea of walking at his regretfully slow pace about the endless gardens, if she'd rather just spend her days with Margaery and their fool cousins.

"I would like that, my lord," she replies, her voice even lower than his and incalculably different from normal, somehow. "Some peace and quiet would be most welcome."

* * *

Willas had hoped to draw Sansa out of her shell of manners without Margaery dancing attendance – he knows that Sansa does not truly trust anyone who would be willing to ally themselves with the Lannisters, and he cannot blame her because of what the Lannisters did to her father, and because he thinks his family is signing their own death warrant by supporting the Bastard King – but she remains remote.

She is every bit as clever as Grandmother said, even though he can tell that she limited herself to the studies of "women's" things while growing up, ever striving to become what her septa doubtless told her was the perfect lady – her knowledge of horticulture and geography prove slim, but she understands so much more about beauty and expression and colour than he thinks she even realises. She allows herself to ask questions about the roses, and her eyes light up with something other than fear and that devastating sadness he's glimpsed once or twice when he leads her to the stables.

"Your mounts are talked about even at Winterfell," she tells him, wandering along the line of stalls which are home to his favourite horses – his own horse, Gardener, and Margaery and Garlan's horses, Sweetling and Florian, are here, as well as Comet, who he had intended bringing with him when he visited Sunspear. Plans for his trip to visit Dorne had been curtailed by the outbreak of the war, of course, but he makes sure that Comet is kept in good order for when next he has an opportunity to present the horse to Oberyn Martell in return for the delicate sandsteed Oberyn gifted him when last he visited Highgarden.

"I can ride only with a special saddle now, and even then I will never be able to ride in a joust, but I find it very peaceful here at the stables," he hears himself say. "Grandmother detests horses, so it is one of the few true refuges to be had."

Sansa laughs, so quietly and for so short a moment that he almost thinks he imagined it, but he wishes that she would do it again. It would almost reassure him that she does not hate every single person and every single thing south of the Neck if she were to laugh even just once more.

* * *

Garlan wakes him the morning of the wedding with a sympathetic smile.

"Do try not to look as though you are marching to your own funeral, brother," he japes, aiming for lightness and missing by a breath. "There are few men lucky enough to marry a woman as lovely as Lady Sansa."

Willas grunts and rolls off his back, taking his brace from the nightstand and motioning for Garlan to give him more room.

"She is a child," he says, fitting the leather and steel around his ruined knee and buckling it in place. "Grandmother has reminded me no less than seven times that Sansa is flowered and therefore a woman, but look at her, Garlan – she is a child, and a frightened one at that."

"Margaery seems to think she's more than ready to be wed," Garlan comments, throwing himself across the foot of the bed and leaning up on his elbows. Willas envies him the ease of movement, the chance to do something so simple as jump onto a bed without fear of causing harm. "Mayhaps she's a better judge of what a woman is than you, Willas."

"Margaery has thought herself a woman since she could walk," Willas says drily, rolling his eyes as he heaves himself to his feet with the help of his cane. "Mother is the only judge I trust in this, and she agrees with me."

"And yet she has made no move to put a stop to the wedding."

"She also agrees that the only way to truly keep Sansa safe from the Lannisters is to keep her here, and how else might we keep her here than as my wife? You are already married, and Loras would be as capable of bedding her properly as Margaery even had he not been appointed to the Kingsguard."

"Why should we concern ourselves with the safety of a traitor's daughter?" Garlan challenges, rising to his feet and bearing Willas' weight against his chest so his brother might pull on his breeches without sitting back down. "I know that Grandmother's schemes have often been too subtle for my comprehension, but this makes no sense whatsoever."

"She thinks to bind us to both the Lannisters and the Starks through mine and Margaery's marriages," Willas explains, wincing sharply as his weight rolls onto his bad leg for a heartbeat. "If the Lannisters win, we might say that Sansa visited as Margaery's friend and she and I were fools for love. If the Starks win, we might say that Joffrey was a monster and left Father no choice but to agree to a match between him and Marg."

"The cunning old witch."

"That's one word for her, I suppose."

* * *

He cannot deny that she is exceptionally beautiful on Garlan's arm when he walks her to the altar in the sept. Her hair is loose down her back for the first time since her arrival, and it is truly magnificent – fire and amber and sunshine and rose gold (appropriate, he thinks, for a Tyrell) all at once.

The Stark cloak that she and Margaery spent the past week sewing under Grandmother's watchful gaze is a work of art, a confection of ermine, seed pearls and cloth-of-silver, with a direwolf that seems to dance as he removes it from her narrow shoulders.

It may be his imagination (he does not think so), but she flinches slightly when he drapes his colours around her and clasps the golden rose at the base of her throat, and she is like an exquisite marble carving when he cradles her face in his hands and brushes his lips over hers.

Theirs, he senses, will not be a passionate marriage.

She sits dutifully by his side all through the feast, her smile brilliant to those who do not look past the veneer that is so thin and brittle that even just hearing Margaery shout for Mother seems to send another crack spiderwebbing across it, until that despair that he finds so perversely compelling is almost exposed in Sansa's eyes – not that he takes pleasure in her pain, never that, but he wants to tease it out, to provide what aid he can to help her overcome it.

He thinks that perhaps, once she is settled here at Highgarden, he might promise her a visit to Winterfell as soon as the war is over, but quickly dismisses the idea – there is every chance that her family will be dead at the end of the war, whether it be in battle or on the edge of Ilyn Payne's sword, and he cannot afford to make promises that he cannot keep, not when she is already so delicate, so fragile.

He wishes that there was something, anything he could do to make her smile more genuinely, or perhaps even to make her laugh – and so he turns to Garlan, murmurs a question in his brother's ear, and soon Sansa is spinning about the floor in Garlan's arms, her head tilted back as she laughs.

Willas doubts that he will ever be the one to make her laugh so, and he is surprised by the level of disappointment he feels at that thought.


	2. Chapter 2

Margaery and the cousins (there are too many for Willas to remember all of the names) make short work of Willas' upper garments, and he's somewhere between relieved and embarrassed to find himself pushed down into his wheelchair so the women can pull off his boots and breeches and, despite his best efforts, his small clothes.

He's kept rooms on the ground floor of the castle since his accident, forced as he is to bend his pride enough to admit that there will be days when his leg will be too painful to walk on, even with his cane, and he will need to use his wheelchair. He will not suffer the indignity of being practically carried up the stairs on those days (although Garlan, Seven bless him, never utters a word of protest when there is a need for Willas to venture higher up into Highgarden on those days), and so he is relegated to the apartments that were once used for the least welcome of guests.

He realises only as Margaery and the cousins shield their eyes and blindly hold out his cane that perhaps Sansa would rather somewhere different, brighter and airier and more fitting for the future Lady of Highgarden, but he levers himself out of his chair and slams the door of the room behind him, making sure to lower the bar to prevent any drunken interruptions.

Any drunken bravado masquerading as arousal that he may feel dissipates immediately upon the sight of Sansa with the covers pulled right up to her chin, gut-churning fear the only thing visible in her luminous eyes.

* * *

She's trembling, he can see that even from the door, and she can't even look at him.

He sighs heavily – he knew that this would be difficult, knows that she probably wishes that he was Loras (if only she knew) or even Garlan, but he did not think that she was actually _afraid_ of him _–_ and limps over to where his robe hangs on the wall.

There's a new robe for him there as well, one that matches Sansa's. They're green silk heavily embroidered in golden thread, ostentatious and ridiculous, a gift from Father. Willas shrugs on his old, worn woollen robe, the same one he'd had for years, and frowns at Sansa's robe.

"This will never do," he says thoughtfully, tossing it and the matching one cut to fit him unceremoniously onto the ground and revealing his spare robe, also woollen and also years old. "Silk might look well, but nothing can best wool for sheer warmth and there is a chill in the air tonight."

She watches him uncertainly when he holds it out to her, and it takes a long, heavy moment before she reaches out a shaking hand and takes it.

"You cannot sleep with your hair unbrushed, my lady," he reassures her, stepping away and moving towards the dressing table Grandmother had reminded him he needed now that there was to be a lady sharing his rooms. "Come, I spent long enough brushing Margaery's hair when she evaded Mother and her septa – mayhaps I will be of some use to you."

He's amazed by the way she manages to emerge from beneath the covers and hide under the robe without exposing so much as an inch of unnecessary skin to him, but suddenly she's standing at his side, looking up at him with those damned eyes, biting her lip and waiting.

"Please, Sansa – may I call you Sansa?"

"If it please you, my lord," she replies, ducking her head to hide her blush. He gestures for her to take a seat in front of him, wonders if she'll ever be willing to share anything with him, even something so minute as the delicate pinkness in her cheeks that she works so hard to conceal from everyone, and sets down his cane in favour of the silver-backed hairbrush someone (probably Margaery, although it's equally likely to have been Garlan) left for this precise purpose.

"It would," he tells her, keeping his voice soft, gentle, because Willas is no blushing maiden, bad leg or not, and he's never met a girl or woman so unbelievably skittish as Sansa – he's fast coming to the conclusion that he's never come across a horse as skittish as her, and he's been left with some near-ruined horses once Loras was done with them.

He pushes aside the thought of Sansa as near-ruined, because he refuses to believe that she is, that he cannot guide her to some measure of happiness, and parts her hair to begin brushing it.

"I've never seen hair like yours before," he murmurs, marvelling at the shimmer of colours in her curls. Her hair feelslovely in his hands, not silky like Margaery's hair, it's too heavy and thick and lustrous for that, but it's impossibly soft and gods, it even _smells_ lovely, something that might be rosemary clean and sharp in the air that always smells faintly of roses here. "It's like… Like fire, but more."

He catches her eye in the mirror by accident, and he reluctantly admits that yes, she is beautiful – she will become even more so as she grows into herself, he can see that quite clearly – and wonders if he did the wrong thing in marrying her after all.

"Thank you, my lord," she whispers, looking away quickly and focusing on her hands. She wears a ring shaped like a butterfly, big on her delicate hand, and she toys with it rather than looking at him. He bites back another sigh and continues brushing her hair in silence, trying to work out how precisely he is supposed to bed his wife without feeling like a rapist.

"Sansa, look at me," he says when he sets down the brush. "Please, this is important."

She turns her face up to his so slowly, looking back over her shoulder. She's biting her lip again, her teeth startlingly white against the deep pink skin, and he's ashamed by how much he'd like to kiss her.

"Sansa," he breathes, touching the sharp curve of her cheekbone with the very tips of his fingers, carefully hiding his relief when she does not flinch. "Sansa, I know that you do not- That you would rather we did not have to go through with this."

"I am your wife, my lord," she tells him, parroting off phrases that clearly came from a septa. "How could I not wish to go through with this?"

Now _that's_ interesting – that had far too much steel, too much bite to have come from a septa. Perhaps he does not need to be quite so gentle with her as he thought.

"Be honest," he says flatly. "I am not the man you would have chosen to marry, am I? I imagine either of my younger brothers would have been a more appealing option. I am far older than you and half-crippled, too."

"My lord-"

"Sansa, I have a name. I would ask that you use it, if you truly intend sharing a bed with me tonight."

She flushes bright, brilliant scarlet that clashes magnificently with her hair, and he immediately hates himself for being so abrupt.

"I apologise, my lady," he says, offering her his hand and taking his cane from where it leans against the table. "But truly, Sansa – I understand if you are… If you are reluctant. I know that you cannot ever have imagined that your wedding night would be like this."

She is shaking again by the time they reach the bed, and she seems confused when he makes no move to strip her of her robe.

"If I could spare you the pain of this, I would," he promises her. "But if our marriage is unconsummated, the Lannisters could easily seek that the High Septon annuls it, and he is their creature, after all – the only way to guarantee that you will be safe from them is for… Well, for us to lie together, I'm afraid."

"Why are you being so kind to me?" she asks, and there is so much pain and suspicion and doubt and terrible, disbelieving hope in her voice that he drops his cane and cups her face in his hands.

"You are my wife now, Sansa," he says. "I wrapped you in my cloak and took you into my protection – you will suffer no hurt that is within my power to prevent, I promise you."

* * *

She seems to expect him to kiss her then, but he doesn't – instead, he releases her and sits down on the edge of the bed to remove his brace, opening the six buckles one at a time and setting the whole thing down on the nightstand (he ignores the small corked bottle of poppy's milk that the maesters insist he keeps near at night) and then shedding his robe.

He slides right across the bed, leaving plenty of space for her should she choose to join him. She hesitates – she has done little else tonight, he thinks – and toys with the tie of her robe, showing her reluctance to bare herself to him.

"There are nightgowns in the drawers for you," he offers, gesturing across the room and settling himself back against the pillows. His leg would have been aching already without standing to brush her hair, and he wonders how she'll react to the realisation that his infirmity means she will have to do rather more than simply lay back and think of something pleasant.

The relief in her eyes would be insulting if it weren't preferable to the fear that had been there earlier, and she all but runs across the room-

"But these are your drawers, my lord," she says, confused.

"Ah, well, I'm afraid your clothes are in the lower drawers," he admits. "My leg, Sansa – I cannot bend to reach the lower drawers."

She nods silently, and he once more regrets ever taking part in that godsforsaken tilt – would she be more amenable to their match if he was not a cripple? If not for his leg, he would have danced her around the floor until she collapsed into his arms, laughing and flushed as she was when Garlan returned her to her seat-

His breath catches when she drops her robe to pull on a shift, exposing the long, slender curves of her back and bottom to him – it is not her body that gives him pause, although she is truly lovely, but rather the pink wealds and ridges marring the pale skin of her shoulder blades and spine, the bruises that have not yet faded entirely on her shoulders and ribs.

Margaery pulled him aside three days before and told him that Joffrey and his Kingsguard had abused Sansa, but Willas never expected this. He never thought that any knight worth the oils used to anoint him would have laid hands on any lady, much less one as sweet and gentle as Sansa.

He is surprised by the swell of protective anger that rises up his throat, but he forces it down when she turns and manages to smile for her. She watches him warily as she comes back around to the bed, sitting primly on the very edge of the mattress with her back to him, her hair still pulled forward over her shoulders. He can see the scars through the sheer material of her nightgown, and he isn't sure whether to curse Margaery for that or to sing her praises to the heavens.

"I still do not understand," Sansa whispers, her shoulders hunching. "Why? Why would you tell me to dress?"

"I thought you might be more comfortable," he says honestly, sitting up and setting a tentative hand on her shoulder. He bites his lip when she flinches, not sure how to proceed. "I know that you are afraid, Sansa, but you do not need to be – I will never hurt you if I can avoid it. You have my word on that. Please – you will be warmer under the covers. Come to bed."

She turns her head to him, her eyes staying on his hand, dark and freckled against her white, white skin. She takes a deep breath and swings her legs up onto the bed, slipping under the covers and pulling them up to her waist.

Truly, he thinks, she is very beautiful – and then he stops, wondering if he truly needs to convince himself to lie with her by reminding himself of how lovely she is.

That rich, sharp rosemary-but-not scent of her hair is heavy in the air now that they are partially enclosed by the half-open drapes of his bed, and he finds himself winding a curl around his finger, amazed once more by how soft it is.

"Have you ever been kissed, Sansa?" he asks, voice low. "Truly kissed, I mean. Until your lips are swollen and you can't breathe, until you're so warm you feel as if you'll never be cold again?"

She meets his gaze now, her eyes wide and her lips just slightly parted.

"No, my lord."

He smiles, surprised and mildly ashamed for the thousandth time since she walked into the sept by just how much he wants this, and twists his body until he's leaning over her, one hand on the bed at her hip and the other cradling her jaw.

"Well, we must remedy that," he murmurs, leaning in to taste, to tease – her lips are soft and warm under his, her breath hot against his face when she sighs.

It's all the encouragement he needs, and he leans back in to kiss her in earnest, chaste and gentle and building, slowly building, coaxing her lips open and how is it that she tastes so sweet, the summerwine and strawberries and lemon cakes she'd eaten at the feast lingering-

She lifts a trembling hand and twists it into his hair, pulling him closer, and a jolt of triumph runs up his spine – the horrible guilt lingering in the pit of his stomach abates somewhat at the first shy touch of her tongue against his, replaced by the deep, heady warmth of arousal, but when he curves a hand around her hip and tugs gently, urging her with him, she freezes, and he feels like some sort of depraved monster, like a rapist.

"Sansa," he breathes, not opening his eyes, not moving back, not daring to do anything that might frighten her, "Sansa, do you trust that I will not hurt you?"

He feels her nod, her hair shifting where it fell over his shoulder, and spares a prayer to the Warrior for giving her some measure of bravery.

"Let me guide you," he tells her. "Trust me, Sansa – I know I have done little enough to earn your trust, but in this I can only assure you that I only want to make you feel good, Sansa. Only good, sweetling, I promise."

She hesitates for a long, lingering moment, and he's almost convinced that she'll pull away by the time she touches her lips to his again.

This time, she follows his hands when he pulls her towards him, lets him press her to his chest – and gods, she feels lovely against him, the soft weight of her breasts and the warmth of her through the diaphanous shift – and then, slowly, so slowly, he guides her on top of him.

She pulls away when he settles her knees on either side of his hips, lips dark pink, almost red, and eyes wide and uncertain. He ruthlessly pushes aside the urge to bury his hands in her glorious hair and pull her mouth back to his, to kiss her until she moans and then to pull her body down onto his, to push his body up into hers, and instead frames her face in his hands.

He's breathing heavily, both from the want seeping into his bones and the dull throb of his leg from leaning over her as he did, but nothing matters except Sansa now, nothing except the tiny spark of apprehension in the depths of her eyes.

"My leg," he explains with an apologetic shrug. "I imagine you were taught the basics of what goes on in the marriage bed once you flowered…?"

She seems suddenly aware of the hand she has twisted into his hair and the other resting on his bare chest, just below his collarbone, and pulls back, folding her fingers together just under her breasts as she shakes her head.

"No, but Margaery…"

Willas cannot help but smile.

"Of course," he says. "Margaery is a font of knowledge when she so chooses. She did not explain my infirmity, Sansa?"

"I- No, my lord. She did not."

"I cannot bend my knee at all, you see," he explains.

Some small part of him laughing at the sheer strangeness of discussing his bad leg with his new wife while she sits in his lap, him painfully hard under her and her so chaste as to almost be the Maiden come to earth.

"The base of my thighbone and my kneecap were crushed in the fall, and both the bones in my lower leg were badly broken, along with my ankle – the maesters did their best, but healing is an imperfect art and I am similarly imperfect. I could perhaps lie with you as Margaery explained, but it would be painful and uncomfortable for both of us, and I would rather not put you off the idea of ever sharing a bed with me again."

 _Gods,_ she's lovely when she blushes like that,pearly pink along her high cheekbones and a shy attempt to hide a smile that he thinks is probably fuelled more by nervousness than mirth.

"Sansa," he says gently, stroking his thumb across her cheekbone and turning her face until she has no choice but to look him in the eye. He wishes more than anything that there was no fear in her face, but he supposes that that may come in time – he does not think it the normal maiden's fear, borne of horror stories of the pain and blood and terror of a torn maidenhead. "It may be easier for you this way, as well – you will better be able to control how we move, and if something is hurting you or you dislike something I do, you will be able to stop me easier, to tell me what not to do."

Her hands shake so badly that even pressing them firmly against his shoulders does not quell the tremors, but something about the set of her jaw firms and a fire that almost matches her hair blazes bright, brilliant blue in her eyes.

Willas would never admit it, not even to Garlan, not even to _himself,_ but he doesn't think he's ever wanted a woman as badly as he wants Sansa in this moment. The fire in her eyes matches the pride straightening her spine, pushing her shoulders back, and she's so fierce – so fragile, so innocent, so clearly broken, but still so _fierce –_ that for a moment, all he can think of is how glorious she will be as Lady of Highgarden when Father's day comes.

He is popular enough with his people, as popular as the pitied crippled heir will ever be, but Willas knows the Reach, and he knows that the people of the Reach will come to love Sansa, high and lowborn alike. He can already see her sitting high in the saddle, green velvet heavy around her shoulders and roses in her stunning hair (he's already in love with her hair, Garlan commented on it during the feast and Margaery teased him for it, but looking at it was nothing compared to the feel of it in his hands, against his skin, and he thinks he might die if he has to forsake touching it) as she rides through his lands, _their_ lands, and she will be adored.

Her kiss is more determined now, and the bite of her fingernails into his shoulders lends a tension to the air that he finds more exciting than perhaps he should. She's learning astonishingly quickly, that he takes no shame in delighting in, and seems more comfortable in his arms now than she did when he touched her first – but she still flinches when he rests his hand in the dip of her waist, his fingers fitting to the alarmingly pronounced groves of her ribs through her nightgown, and he pulls away with a sigh.

"Sansa," he says, wondering why he can't seem to stop saying her name. "Sansa, please – tell me what you want of me, please. Only good, Sansa, remember? Only good."

She breathes deeply through her nose, eyes closed, and he realises that she is gathering up every scrap of courage she can muster so she might speak openly to him.

"I don't know," she admits, her hair tumbling around her face and obscuring her flushed cheeks. "I don't- it's all just so much. I don't understand it."

The relief that floods him at this indirect confirmation that she was not despoiled by Joffrey or his men takes his breath away for an instant, and he waits for her to continue without speaking.

"I know- I assume, my lord, Willas, I mean, that you have- that you have lain with women before, but I _am_ a maid, my lor- Willas, and I don't _know."_

"Kiss me again, Sansa," he says, channelling the flare of possessive want in his stomach into something more productive. He wonders if her breasts will feel as good in his hands as they had against his chest. "Kiss me – I'll take care of the rest, sweetling. Only good."

She does kiss him again, pressing closer this time, and he can tell by the way she fidgets that there's heat and wet and aching building between her legs, and there's nothing he wants more than to bury himself there – fingers, tongue, cock, he doesn't really care so long as he's inside her cunt soon, and gods but he's ashamed of himself for that – he holds himself back, nipping at her lower lip and making her gasp while carefully, so carefully, shifting his hand from her waist to skim the lower curve of her breast with his knuckles.

She gasps against his mouth a second time, her fingers tight and hard on his shoulders, and he presses his advantage, smoothing his fingers around the roundness of her breast and barely holding back a moan at finding her nipple hard, hardening further under the caress of his hand.

His other hand is still twisted into her hair, and it is only with the greatest of reluctance that he unwinds it to lower it to her hip and pull her closer. He counts it a great victory that she neither flinches nor pulls back, only a brief stillness of her mouth on his an indication of her uncertainty.

He pulls his mouth from hers then, startling her, and leans in to kiss her neck, just behind the corner of her jaw, below her ear, keeping his lips feather-light against her skin until she sighs and leans into him just slightly, another mite of the tension easing from her shoulders.

 _I could have her boneless just by kissing her, I could,_ he thinks giddily, opening his mouth to taste her pulse, _but gods, I want more, so much more._

It's true, he does, the way his hands are moving across her body without conscious thought or direction is proof enough of that, stroking and discovering and mapping the shape of her, the long lines of her lovely, elegant body that he _knows_ will fit so well against his, he just _knows_ it.

She makes the loveliest noises, soft little chirps of surprise and, he hopes, pleasure as his mouth and hands learn her body. He wants so badly to pull her even closer, to crush her against him and lose himself inside her, but he gentles his touch (like a highly-strung filly, that's what she is, needing to be coaxed with gentle touches lest she shatter to ruination) and slowly works the laces holding the front of her nightgown together open, slowly inches the hem higher up her milk-pale thigh-

She sucks in a noisy breath when his fingers find her bare nipple, the skin warm and soft under his touch, but it's nothing compared to the sharp little cry of surprise when his other hand runs lightly through the coarse hair covering her mound, nothing compared to the whimper of shock and pleasure – it has to be pleasure, it has to be, because her fingers twist into his hair and her hips rock just slightly, so slightly that he would have missed it were he not hyperaware of every move she makes – when he finds the nub right at the top of her slit.

"Willas," she breathes, and just hearing her say his name without stumbling over it is enough to drive him to pull the neck of her nightgown down roughly and take her nipple between his lips, is almost enough to send his hips surging up towards hers. "Oh, Willas-"

He moans helplessly around her nipple when her voice breaks off into another of those sharp little cries, and before he even realises it he has a finger crooked inside her to the second knuckle, and _gods-_

"So wet," he gasps, licking right up along her breastbone to the hollow at the base of her throat. "So wet, Sansa, and so hot – is that for me, sweet girl? Is it?"

"Yes," she gasps back, cheeks red and eyes dark, and he can see that even though she still does not understand she _likes it,_ and gods but he does too. "Yes, for you, yes."

"I promised, Sansa, didn't I?" he whispers into her throat. "Only good, lovely girl, only good, I promised."

He can feel his control slipping and forces it back, forces himself to gentle his hands again, and she sighs into his touch now, darting shy touches of her own over his shoulders, the top of his back, his upper arms, as if she wants to know him as much as he wants to know her.

"Sansa," he gasps, slipping another finger into the heat of her cunt and drawing a whimper from her throat, "Sansa-"

"Yes," she says breathlessly, nodding frantically, "now, now, it feels so good, quickly-"

He's the one trembling now, desperate want sending a shake through his limbs until he can hardly focus enough to take himself in hand, guide himself to her cunt-

"Oh, _gods,"_ he groans, his head falling forward so his brow is against her breastbone, between her breasts. She's so hot, so hot and wet and _tight,_ but she's tense, too, and he tries to force aside the pleasure to consider her pain.

"Is that it?" she asks, her voice uncertain, and he can only shake his head.

"Lower," he manages to choke out. "Lower, Sansa, it will hurt, beautiful girl, I'm so sorry, it will hurt-"

He can't hold back a garbled shout as she sinks further onto him, but her lovely sharp cry isn't lovely this time, it's pained and there are tears in her eyes when his head snaps up to look at her.

"We can stop now," he tells her, biting the insides of his cheeks to shreds with the effort of keeping his hips still. "I've- Sansa, I've broken your maidenhead, that's all we had to do-"

"No," she grits out, bowing her head and bracing herself on his shoulders. "No, we must do it properly."

He lifts a hand and touches her face, the shake worse now that he's _inside her,_ buried in the heat of her, the heat that surpasses even the fire of her hair.

"But it is hurting you so much," he says even as his hips roll up and his eyes roll back. "Oh, gods, I'm so sorry, Sansa, I promised only good-"

"I knew it would hurt," she gasps, screwing her eyes shut and digging her fingers harder into his shoulders. "Please, be quick," she adds, tears sliding down around her cheeks and no, this is all wrong, he never meant to make her cry, not ever, but he's powerless to hold his body back when she feels as good around his cock as she does but at least, mercifully, he _is_ quick, and then it's over.

"I'm sorry," he says again, helping her off him and settling her down onto the pillows beside him, turning as best he can to look at her. "I'm so sorry, Sansa-"

She smiles bravely, rubbing her cheeks roughly with the back of her hand.

"It is done now, my lord," she says. "Thank you."

With that, she rolls over to face away from him.

Willas does not sleep that night.


	3. Chapter 3

Dawn slants through the windows earlier than Willas expects, and he rolls over to put on his brace.

Sansa is asleep on the pillows between him and his brace, her hair fanned out across the bed and her shoulders, and there is none of the pain or fear from last night in her face. She is utterly serene, her breathing slow and deep and even, and he finds himself relieved that he has not stirred her from her sleep.

He isn't sure that he could face her quite yet after seeing the pain in her eyes last night.

He almost curses when he realises that he's stranded on his side of the bed, his brace and cane and even his robe all far on the other side of Sansa, and he's utterly helpless – he can only manage without his wheelchair when he has both his brace and his cane, and even then it's a wonder he hasn't ground his teeth to dust with the pain of it yet.

He cannot wake her, though. Not yet. She deserves this, this repose after her bravery last night, and he would very much like to see the dark shadows under her eyes fade.

"How am I to get out of bed?" he murmurs, rubbing his face tiredly before giving in with a sigh, acknowledging the deep ache in his leg and reaching under the covers to test his knee. He can feel the swelling, hard and smooth, and he knows that half his leg will be red and shiny when he looks. Even with his brace, he'll need his wheelchair today – there is no chance of his leg bearing his weight when it is as swollen as this. Steeling himself, he tosses back the covers and groans. It is worse than he suspected, almost bruised-looking, and seven hells but it hurts.

"My lord?"

Sansa is awake, of course she is awake, and he feels his cheeks flush with embarrassment before he can pull the covers back to hide his leg from her view. Luckily, she seems preoccupied by her own discomfort, wincing as she pushes herself up until she's sitting facing him, her hair wild around her face and her eyes bleary.

"What time…?"

"Just after dawn, Sansa," he sighs. "Might I trouble you to give me some little aid, and then you may return to bed, my lady? I… Ah, my leg, Sansa. I'm afraid I'll need my wheelchair today, you see, and I cannot manage to get to it – it's out in the solar, I'm afraid."

She's alert in an instant, and he wonders if this is what Grandmother meant by bruised kindness – there is a gentleness to her always, but mayhaps she needs to see suffering for her to be actively kind, because she's been scorned or shamed for kindness before? – before smiling as best he can against the pain that's intensifying with every move he makes, every shift of the mattress under his leg, and she slips out of bed and pulls on her robe before he can say another word.

"How might I help?" she asks, eyes darting from his brace to his cane to the line of dark hair visible above the top of the covers where they rest just below his hips and back up to his face. "Should I send for someone? A maester?"

"No, Sansa, no – if you could fetch me some clothes, smallclothes and breeches and a shirt, and give me my brace, that would be an excellent start."

If he was dressed, he would be able to go out and send for servants himself – he wants to give her as much peace as he can, hopes that she will sleep some more, though he doubts it – and he could send for baths and food for them both. He has a sense that she will be discomfited by the familiar manner of the servants until she has a chance to get used to them, and so he hopes to ease her into it. Highgarden is different from Winterfell, he would guess, is different from King's Landing he knows, more similar to Sunspear than any Reacher or Dornishman would ever admit, but Sansa will not be used to it and he does not want to shock her.

She hands him his brace before scurrying across the room to the drawers, firing a glance back over her shoulder when he throws back the covers once more. He can see the flush spreading right down the back of her neck, and he knows that her face must be truly scarlet, not the pale pink he found himself so taken with last night – he hopes that she will someday be able to look upon him without blushing.

He tastes blood when he lifts his leg because his teeth tear a lump out of the inside of his cheek, and there are tears on his face by the time he has even the first buckle closed – he dreads fastening the rest of them, because he knows that even out to the last, they will be too tight. He can hardly remember the last time his leg was this bad, but he loathes that it chose today of all days to flare up like this.

"Milord Willas? You be wanting your chair?"

His head snaps up at the call through the door, and he almost cries with sheer relief.

"Aye, Aldwin – bring it in, will you?"

"Right away, milord," comes the cheerful reply, and Sansa is left staring when a tall man of middle years with a shock of steely grey hair pushes Willas' wheelchair into the bedchamber with a smile. "I assume you'll be wanting baths as well, milord? I'll send for hot water and your tub, then."

"I'd rather you sent for the maester," Willas admits, gritting his teeth with the effort of strapping the second buckle in place. "My leg, Aldwin-"

Aldwin has been Willas' manservant for longer than Willas can remember, a teacher and guard (and parent) when he surpassed what old Maester Lomys thought necessary for a future Lord of the Reach and taken to the sword so well that Igon Vyrwel had japed that he had no need of a guard (and when Mother and Father were too busy with their more outgoing, charismatic and beautiful children to worry about their studious eldest son who was packed off to Oldtown almost as soon as he could walk).

"Ah, I'd say it needs draining, milord," Aldwin says, his face twisted with regret. "You shouldn't've been standing as long as you were yesterday, milord Willas – I did warn you, didn't I?"

"Yes, Aldwin, you did," Willas sighs, gladly surrendering the work of setting his brace in place to Aldwin's steady hands, tipping his head back and trying not to weep openly from the pain of it.

Then he remembers that Sansa was still in the room.

"Gods, where are my manners," he gasps, "Aldwin, I'd like to introduce my wife, Lady Sansa – Sansa, this is Aldwin, my- Well, what title would you give yourself, Aldwin?"

"Your nursemaid, I suppose," Aldwin says mildly, pulling the longest strap, the one that binds directly around the ruined remains of Willas' kneecap, firmly closed, ignoring Willas' yelp of agony. "Been looking after your lord husband almost since before he were born, milady – would've been his wet-nurse if his lady mother weren't so hale and hearty, I'd wager."

Willas is surprised to hear Sansa giggle.

"Fine young man is our Lord Willas," Aldwin goes on, chatting over his shoulder to Sansa as if Willas isn't lying naked and dizzy with pain in the bed before them, as if he isn't there at all. "Oh, he'll say he's nothing compared to our Lord Garlan, but that holds as much water as a pisspot with a hole in – fine young man, our Lord Willas, aren't you milord?"

"Aldwin, I swear to the Seven-"

"Oh, hush," Aldwin laughs, holding out a hand to Sansa and giving the final strap a sharp tug to make sure it's closed properly. Sansa hands over the bundle of clothes she's gathered and retreats to the foot of the bed, biting her lip and watching Willas with what he thinks might be concern in her huge eyes. "You be quiet now, and I'll send for old Lomys and have him drain your leg – you'll be right as rain in no time at all."

Willas submits to Aldwin's help in pulling on his smallclothes and breeches, and is grateful for the help in getting to his wheelchair, but he still breathes a sigh of relief when Aldwin leaves and he feels slightly more independent under Sansa's gaze.

"I'm sorry, Sansa, truly I am – how do you feel this morning? I understand that the- the pain can linger somewhat."

Her cheeks flush scarlet, but she holds his gaze.

"I am a little sore," she admits, catching her lower lip in her teeth again, and then she shakes her head. "But it is of little consequence compared to your leg. Do not worry for me, my lord."

He wishes that she'd call him by his name, and wonders if her parents always called one another "my lord" and "my lady" – he never remembers Mother and Father calling each other anything other than Alerie and Mace when it was just them and Willas and his siblings, but perhaps Eddard and Catelyn Stark were more formal. Willas never met his goodfather before his execution, he cannot comment, but he hopes that Sansa's formality is a question of familiarity rather than habit. He does not want to spend his entire marriage as "my lord." _She said my name last night,_ he remembers, pulling his shirt down over his head. _Before I hurt her, she said my name. That's a start._

"I do not like to think of you hurting, Sansa," he tells her, straightening the hem of his shirt and wheeling himself over to her side. "When Maester Lomys arrives, would you like me to ask him for something for you? A salve or tincture, perhaps?"

"Oh, my lord, I would not like to trouble you-"

"It is nothing, Sansa," he says honestly, waving aside her concern. "I will need to speak constantly while my leg is being drained anyways, else I'll scream with the pain of it."

She blanches, causing him to regret his words instantly, and he shakes his head.

"I am exaggerating," he soothes. "It is painful, yes, but not so bad as that – fluid builds up around my knee and the only way to relieve the pressure and the swelling is to drain it. Hopefully it will not take long this morning."

He's lying outright now, of course – he knows full well that it will be both long-winded and excruciating, accompanied by a lecture from Maester Lomys on standing for too long. He's just thankful that Father is far away in King's Landing, too far away to shout at him for risking his leg like that.

"Mayhaps I should send someone to ask for Garlan," he murmurs, lost in thought, and sighs. "Pardon me, Sansa – I fear that I will be poor company indeed today. Margaery mentioned something about breaking your fast together this morning, although I doubt she will be out of bed quite yet. I could send Aldwin-"

"Is there nothing I can do to help?" she breaks in, taking half a step towards him as if she might touch him. He is embarrassed by how much he would like for her to touch him, but still manages to meet her eyes. Lit up from the side as she is, with dawning sunlight lining her hair in silver-gold and catching on the intense blue of her eyes, she's fairly a goddess, and he is only a man, after all. "There must be something."

"No, Sansa, I am afraid not – only Maester Lomys and his wicked little flensing knife can help me now." Willas has never known if he trusts the truth of it or not, but the maester insists that a flensing knife, used to remove skin and skin alone from flesh, is the only thing with a suitable blade for draining the fluid from his leg.

* * *

He does scream, but Garlan stuffs a gag into his mouth after only a second or two.

Garlan is the only thing keeping Willas in his seat – literally keeping him there, his hands digging into Willas shoulders and pressing him down into the chair as Maester Lomys makes several small, deep cuts into the inflamed flesh of his leg and clear, malign liquid seeps out into the basin resting on the floor.

He's ashamed of the tears spilling down his cheeks, but _gods_ it hurts – it hasn't hurt like this in months, months and months, and he's barely coherent enough to be thankful that Sansa is behind the thick door of their bedchamber in the bath.

His muffled screams soften to sobs and whimpers as the pressure on his leg lessens, but it still aches so badly he can hardly see straight, so badly that all he wants to do is curse Oberyn Martell, curse his horse, curse the drawing of the tilt, his saddler, his lance, his own pride and stupidity for ever entering the bloody lists and him only a week knighted-

The knife twists into the soft flesh right behind his knee, and he knows no more.

* * *

He wakes slowly as Garlan and Aldwin lower him into the bath, the steam rising in lazy coils that carry a faint hint of rosemary, of Sansa, and it's all very pleasant until Garlan eases his bad leg into the tub and the scented water seeps through the thin layer of linen and into the open wounds.

It's neither Garlan nor Aldwin who comfort him when he cries out in pain, though – no, it is Sansa's soft hands on his face as his head falls back and he sobs in agony, Sansa's hair falling damp and heavy around him as she gathers a cloth from somewhere and begins to clean him. He's limp, boneless, utterly helpless with the searing hurt of his leg, and knowing that Sansa is seeing him at his lowest ebb is worse even than her flinching away from his touch. He is her husband, he should be strong enough to protect her, and yet she has clear proof that he's barely fit to stand even on a good day, much less fight off any threat there may be to her.

"I'm sorry," he gasps, catching her wrist and forcing his head up to look her in the eye. "Sansa, you don't need to-"

"Ssh," she murmurs, stroking his brow and smiling slightly. There's a quiver in her lips, a certain uncertainty in her eyes, but there's also determination in the set of her jaw. "You cared for me last night, my lord – allow me to return the favour."

"Cared for you?" He laughs, harsh and bitter. "Oh, Sansa – Sansa, I hurt you so badly, though."

She scrubs the cloth over his chest, shaking her head.

"It is done," she says firmly. "I am your wife, and I will tend to you."

She accepts no arguments, and so he surrenders to her gentle touch, to her slender hands against his skin, and when she is the one to offer him poppy's milk rather than Garlan or Aldwin or Maester Lomys, when she presses it on him so earnestly, so gently, he accepts it without putting up much of a challenge and gladly falls into the slumber he deprived himself of last night.

* * *

He wakes much later with late afternoon sunshine peeping through the light blue voiles draping his windows. There's a breeze, warm and just strong enough to stir the drapes, and he's vaguely aware of not being alone in his room, although he can't quite remember why.

His leg feels far away, a sort of removed pain that's not quite linked to the rest of his body, floating off somewhere that isn't here. He's been given more milk of the poppy, or perhaps dreamwine – he looks at the angle of the sunlight filtering down onto the floor and guesses that he has been asleep for seven hours, maybe more, and can't ever remember sleeping for so long with just one dose of poppy's milk.

Something that's not rosemary, even though it is, is sharp in the air, sharp and oddly cold, but there are roses too, old roses and new, there behind the rosemary and- is that lavender? No, not quite lavender and not quite rosemary, something strange and altogether lovely.

He turns his head away from the window and startles at the sight of Sansa, Margaery and Grandmother sitting just outside the door of the bedchamber in his solar. Sansa and Margaery are sewing, he can see that, and Grandmother seems to be holding court as she is wont to do when Father isn't here to restrain her.

He feels a sudden urge to sit up, but he realises that he's still naked as his name day when he stirs under the covers and can't help but blush.

Sansa's the first to notice that he's awake, and she surprises him by rushing to her feet and shutting the connecting door before Margaery or Grandmother can even rise from their chairs.

"How do you feel now, my lord?"

Willas pushes himself up on shaky arms and frowns.

"Woolly-headed," he admits, "but my leg does not hurt so much now."

Sansa smiles shyly and moves to the chest of drawers, pulling out clothes for him.

"If you feel better, would you like to sit out?" she asks, laying the clothes on the bed beside him.

"Sansa-"

"Or I could send for something to eat, if you are hungry. Margaery says that you are often hungry after the poppy's milk – I know- I know I was, my lord."

"Sansa, sit with me," he implores, taking her hand and pulling her to sit beside him, right next to him. He need only lean forward to kiss her, but he doesn't – while she's not flinching away from his hands, she's still shy of him, still skittish. _Bind a wild horse first with silken ribbons, the softest of bridles._ "Stay a while, Sansa. Please."

She smiles again, uncertain rather than shy, and squeezes his hand briefly.

"If it please you, my lord."

"When it is just us, Sansa, will you call me by my name, please? I do not mind if you call me "my lord" when there are others about, but here, where it is just you and I, use my name – if you do not mind, that is. Please?"

"I- Yes, Willas. I will use your name."

He is as relieved at this progress as he is reluctant to broach the next topic of conversation, but he must. _I am her husband, her welfare is my concern, especially when I am the cause of her pain._

"This morning, Sansa, you said that you were hurting," he says, looking down at their entwined fingers. Her hands are as lovely as the rest of her, slender and long-fingered and pale and soft. They seem absurdly delicate twisted together with his – he has large hands, strong and quick, weathered and freckled and surprisingly dark against the startling whiteness of her skin. "Tell me truly – are you still hurting? Did you speak with Maester Lomys?"

She flushes that pearly pink, and his hand is cradling her face before he's even aware that he's moved. He wonders if it's the milk of the poppy still in his veins that's making him so bold, so tactile – he isn't like this with anyone except Margaery and Garlan, likes to keep himself to himself, but he's touching Sansa as if it's nothing at all.

"It is still uncomfortable," she says softly, the flush ripening from pearl to rose. "But it is not sore anymore, not truly – I suspect that I will be fully better by tomorrow morning, my lor- Willas."

"Thank the gods," he breathes, tracing her cheekbone with his thumb. "I was afraid that I had hurt you badly. I would never have been able to forgive myself if I had."

"You do not need to concern yourself so much with my welfare," she mumbles, ducking her head. She cannot hide behind her hair now, bound back in a braid that hangs past her hips as it is, but she makes a brave effort to, pulling it down over her shoulder with a shrug.

"Why would you think that?" he asks, genuinely confused. Of course he needs to concern himself with her welfare! "Sansa, you are my _wife!_ I meant it most earnestly when I placed you under my protection. I intend to honour my vows as fully as I am able."

"But- I do not understand."

"Tell me, Sansa – were your parents happy?"

"Yes," she says without hesitation. "Until the day the King came to Winterfell, they were happy. Or mayhaps until the day Bran fell."

"Bran?"

"My younger brother – he was climbing the walls and he fell. He broke his back, and he cannot- could not walk any longer."

 _Could not._ He could have kicked himself for forgetting about her younger brothers, slaughtered by her father's ward, Theon Greyjoy.

"I'm sorry," he says gently, turning her face back up to his. "But think, Sansa – your parents were happy, you say. My parents are happy also. Do you think your father neglected to worry for your mother? My father worries over Mother constantly, I know. It drives her to distraction – although that may be partially Father's habit of worrying quite vocally, I suppose, rather than him simply worrying."

She smiles, wider than he has seen except when she was dancing with Garlan at their wedding feast, and he feels bolder still, daring to twist his fingers into her hair ( _Heavenly, that's what it is, so soft and thick)_ to hold her close.

"Sansa, I will _always_ worry for you," he tells her, keeping his voice soft. _Not a wild horse, a horse that was broken in wrong, with a whip rather than a guiding hand, and needs careful handling. I will heal you, Sansa, I will._ "You are my wife. Remember that – I do not know what was done to you in King's Landing, but you are in Highgarden now. With my father in the capital, _I_ am Lord of Highgarden and head of House Tyrell in the Reach. I will not allow any harm to befall you. I swear it on all the gods, old and new."

He can't quite puzzle together what came between speaking and pushing his tongue past her lips, but she tastes divine and her slender hands are warm on his bare chest when she sighs against his mouth so he doesn't much care.

He forces himself to stop, to not kiss her for long enough for his mind to melt into mush and his body to push aside the influence of the poppy and spring abruptly and embarrassingly to life, and her little murmur of protest when their lips break apart makes him feel ten foot tall.

"Thank you," she whispers, tears in her eyes, tears of gratitude. "Thank you, thank you, thank you-"

* * *

"Our presence is requested in the capital for my sister's wedding," Willas remarks mildly over breakfast one morning two weeks later, carefully watching Sansa's reaction. She pales and her hand still halfway to her mouth, peach juice dripping down her fingers.

"We should begin making preparations for our departure, then," she says shakily, setting down her fruit and wiping her fingers on a napkin. "You will need-"

"I will need nothing," he says with a wave of his hand. "Why, I think that the King could not ask us to change our travel plans, not when we are due to depart as soon as we have eaten, could he?"

Her brow crinkles in confusion, her lips pouting as they do when she's annoyed, he's noticed.

"Travel plans?"

He smiles, glad that he can give her this much, at least.

"How would you like to visit Oldtown, Sansa?"


	4. Chapter 4

His heart leaps into his mouth when Sansa emerges from the castle in a riding gown the exact blue of her eyes with her hair bound back from her face with a series of tight little braids that lie flat against her head and leave most of her hair ( _gods it's beautiful, so beautiful, it will be like a banner streaming out behind her when we ride)_ loose down her back. Her cloak is silvery-grey, heavy and warm to ward against the sharpening chill in the air, and when he teases her that the Stark words are coming true at last, she laughs just slightly and does not object when he touches her face, trailing his thumb over the swell of her lower lip.

She seems a little at a loss to be riding bestride, even on a horse so quiet as Whisper, but once Aldwin helps him up onto Gardener and he has his leg strapped firmly in place, she seems to ease somewhat.

"How have you all this planned?" she asks, nudging Whisper closer so their knees are almost touching. "It must have taken days-"

"I've been planning since before we were wed," he admits. "I had an inkling that it would be best if you did not return too soon to King's Landing, and that inkling proved right. Besides, Grandfather will be furious if he does not get to meet you – and I think you'll rather like him."

Willas has always been more than a little in awe of his grandfather, a hugely tall man nearing his seventieth birthday, who lives up to his title of Voice of Oldtown – he's like a foghorn all on his own, with a laugh that echoes even out of doors. He hopes that Sansa will come to love Leyton Hightower as much as he does, because after Garlan and Uncle Baelor, there is no one in the world that Willas trusts or holds in such high esteem as he does his grandfather.

* * *

The weather holds for the week their journey takes them, and the roseroad is an easy ride besides – years of prosperity and a taste for beautiful things encouraged the Reacher lords to pave their road in smooth cobbles of soft shades of pearl grey and earthy brown and pale, gentle lavender.

Sansa seems enthralled by her new home, delighting in the information Willas is only too happy to share – he has rarely met any as hungry for knowledge as Sansa. She is so different to the girl Margaery described in her letters, but he thinks that surely that is a good thing.

Or at least, she is a different person by day – at night, she is lost in nightmares, more often than not, her body rigid and her face pained. Once, Willas woke to find her sobbing with her eyes wide open, even though she was still fast asleep, and that frightened him more than anything he's ever known except the maester who'd come at him with a bone saw after that godsforsaken tilt – he had only Oberyn Martell and his uncle to thank for still having his leg at all.

He has made no effort to lie with her again, contenting himself with a brief kiss each morning and each night and the regrettably familiar embrace of his own hand in the bath, and he thinks that perhaps she is warming to him, settling into a rhythm that allows her to dictate the pace at which their relationship progresses. He knows full well that their marriage was brokered for political reasons rather than romantic, but he is a romantic at heart and sees no reason why he should not attempt to foster some measure of love between himself and his wife.

Sansa has blossomed under the fresh, clean air of the Reach, though, and he wonders if perhaps it's because it's closer to what he imagines the air of the North is like than anywhere she's been since she left Winterfell – King's Landing is foul, rank and fetid and smelling always of deceit and rot, and Highgarden…

Well, with all the time he spends enclosed within the castle walls, Willas knows better than anyone how choking the scent of roses can be.

Oldtown is different again, but he hopes that Sansa will love it – it smells of the sea and far-off places, but mostly it smells of knowledge and learning.

To Willas, it smells more of home than Highgarden ever has.

They crest the final rise of the roseroad before the city, and Willas draws Gardener to a halt. Sansa, mouth open in surprise, pulls Whisper up beside him.

"Welcome, Sansa," he says, smiling as wide as ever he has before, "to Oldtown."

* * *

He is disappointed when the Old Man himself is on business in the Citadel when they arrive at the High Tower, Sansa still agape at the wonders of Oldtown, but when he sees that Baelor Brightsmile is running down the steps to greet them, it's all he can do to swing his leg over Gardener's neck before stumbling into his uncle's embrace.

"Ah, my favourite nephew! How is it that you forgot to invite me to your wedding, hmm? Where's your cane, lad? Aldwin, give Willas his cane and see to my newest niece."

Sansa seems completely at a loss as to how to deal with Baelor, and Willas laughs at her wide eyes.

"Come, Sansa," he says, taking his cane from Aldwin and holding out a hand to her. "I apologise for my uncle – he has the most wretched manners when it is only family, I'm afraid."

Sansa's smile doesn't waver as she drops into a neat curtsy, but it's shocked clean off her face when Baelor sweeps her into his arms and kisses both of her cheeks.

"You're family now, Lady Sansa of House Tyrell – if Willas saw fit to marry you, that's all the recommendation I need. He's got a good head on his shoulders, this nephew of mine. I'm sure my lord father will be of the same mind. Come, come, we have rooms prepared – mind the steps, lad – don't worry, they're on the ground floor, and your grandfather's had another bloody wheelchair made for you, and he's got the archmaester coming to look at that leg of yours-"

Baelor half runs up the steps like a boy of seventeen rather than a man nearing forty-seven years of age, and Willas shakes his head.

"He is something of an experience, Uncle Baelor," he says wryly, leaning close to her ear and trying not to breathe too deeply, to inhale the not-rosemary-and-lavender scent of her hair. "But I think that perhaps he's just very excitable this afternoon – I have not visited Oldtown in almost two years, and he has not left Oldtown in four."

"You are very close," she hazards, reaching up absentmindedly to adjust her hair.

"Aye, I squired with him – I was fostered by my grandfather until I was ten, and then I served as my uncle's squire until I was sixteen."

"He was knighted young enough, milord Willas was," Aldwin says idly, skipping past them with a chest in his arms. "Never uses his title acause of his leg, but he earned them seven oils, he did – the Old Man knighted him hisself, milady Sansa, you ask him over dinner and see if he denies it."

Sansa looks up at him in surprise, and Willas wishes he'd never mentioned squiring for Baelor at all. He's never mentioned his knighthood since his leg was ruined, not to Loras who was always so eager to outdo his brothers (Willas was knighted younger than Loras, but nobody ever mentions that), not to Margaery who was always so eager for heroes (and Willas did not earn his knighthood during a tourney), not even to Garlan, who he trusts with everything that he is.

"You never told me you were a knight!" she whispers, her voice accusatory. "Nobody addresses you as ser-"

"Because I'm a poor wreck of a knight with a leg like mine, aren't I?" he grouses, scowling as they pass through the elaborately carved entryway of the High Tower, five times as tall as a man and wide enough for four horses to ride abreast. "Can't wield a sword, can't ride in a tourney, can't bloody well do anything much aside from read and breed horses and hounds and hawks. There's no call for me to be addressed as a ser, Sansa – I am a knight no longer."

"There's more to being a knight than- than hitting other men with a sword and knocking each other off horses," she says hotly, spots of colour rising in her cheeks. He's never seen her angry before, but now that he has, the urge to press her back against the wall and kiss away her anger is almost overwhelming – the fire in her eyes finally matches her hair, surpasses it even, and he doesn't think he's ever seen anything so beautiful in all his born days.

"What is there, then?" he challenges. "Come, Sansa, tell me what it is to be a knight if it is not to be fit to fight your lord's battles for him."

"Goodness!" she explodes. "Kindness, too, and modesty and all the other things knights are supposed to show, not like the Mountain and the godsforsaken Kingsguard-"

She seems to remember herself then, clapping a hand over her mouth and flushing red as she realises the eyes of everyone in the great foyer are on her.

"Forgive me," she says, ducking her head and almost, almost pressing her face into his shoulder to hide. "I speak out of turn."

It's the first time she's mentioned the Kingsguard to him, the first time she's mentioned anything at all of King's Landing without Margaery's urging (and Margaery's been gone for weeks now), and the fear in her eyes takes his breath away.

"My deepest apologies, Sansa," he says, guiding her along a corridor that will bring them to the southern wing of the Tower, where the family's apartments are. "I did not mean to upset you, my lady."

"You- No, Willas, I should apologise, I did not mean-"

"We will speak on it later," he says firmly, looking her straight in the eye as if to make a promise of it. "We will speak of all of it – my knights and yours, yes?"

She hesitates, but nods eventually, her eyes shining with what he hopes are not tears. He does not think he could bear it if he made her cry again – he had not seen her tears since their wedding night, and he hopes never to see them again.

* * *

Leyton Hightower, Voice of Oldtown, Lord of the Port, Lord of the High Tower, Defender of the Citadel and Beacon of the South bursts into the great hall at dinner that night, taller than Willas and half as broad again in the shoulder – Garlan is built just like him – with snowy-white hair and warm golden-green eyes.

"Ah, Grandson!" he bellows – or says, rather, because even the Old Man's whisper is most men's shout – before lifting Willas half out of his seat into a hug. "It has been too long since you darkened the door of the High Tower. Come, make introductions between myself and your lady wife."

Willas rolls his eyes and heaves himself fully to his feet, leaning heavily on his cane, before holding his hand out to Sansa. She takes it and rises elegantly from her seat before dropping into a curtsy at Grandfather's feet.

"Lord Hightower," she says softly. "It is an honour and a pleasure, my lord."

"Grandfather, might I present to you my wife, Lady Sansa of House Stark?"

Willas isn't sure what to do when Grandfather's ruddy face turns suddenly white, but he urges Sansa to straighten up and rests a careful hand on her arm.

"Stark, is it?" Grandfather demands, looming over Sansa until she quails. "Of Winterfell?"

"Grandfather?" he says cautiously, gently pulling Sansa closer to him. "Is there something the matter?"

"Come with me," Grandfather says tightly. "We have much to discuss."

* * *

The servants attempted to place them in separate rooms, but none so much as glance at them as Willas herds Sansa into his room and settles her onto the edge of the bed.

She's not even weeping, which is unnerving – she trembles, though, her hands shaking so badly that he thinks she might simply shake herself apart.

"Sansa…"

He does not know what to say to her. What can be said? Her mother and her last remaining brother slain at her uncle's wedding, guest right broken because of the Lannisters, Winterfell taken from her and given to a man who made her scream in disgust when Grandfather said his name – what is there to be said?

"I am the last Stark in Westeros," she says faintly, looking blankly at the far wall as he sits beside her. "And I never wanted Winterfell. Never wanted the North."

The agony in her eyes when she turns to look at him breaks his heart clean in two, and so he pulls her into his arms and strokes her hair until she gives in and begins to cry.

* * *

The Starry Sept has long been one of Willas' favourite places even in Oldtown, but the peace it seems to give Sansa makes it worth more to him than anywhere else in Westeros.

He watches from the mezzanine inside the door, above the sept proper, as she kneels before the Stranger, as she does every day, and sighs. Baelor's hand is heavy on his shoulder, but his uncle's presence is a great reassurance.

"She will come through this," Baelor says quietly. "There is such untapped strength in your little wife, lad – she will be scarred by it, but not broken, I don't think."

"She has been through so much," Willas murmurs. "Joffrey… She did not tell me herself, Uncle, but Margaery says that the Kingsguard beat her and stripped her half-naked before the entire court. She's shy even with me, so I can't even begin to imagine how deeply that must have affected her."

Even from here, he can see Sansa's shoulders shake as she forces back sobs. His heart aches for her, but he is at a loss as to how he might help her beyond holding her at night and soothing her during the day.

"She has been through so much, yes, but she has come through it all, has she not? I know more of women than you, nephew, and I tell you this – your wife is one of the strongest women I've ever seen. She does not realise it quite yet, and nor do you, I think, but it is true. Guard her with your life, Willas – she may well be the single best thing to ever happen to you."

"A gift from the gods to make up for my leg?" Willas mocks, leaning heavily on the railing.

"No, lad – but mayhaps your leg was part of the gods' plan to match you and your Stark. You would have been married years ago if not for your leg, would you not?"

He hasn't considered it, but mayhaps there's some truth in Baelor's words – in all likelihood, he would have been married years ago had any prospective bride's fathers not questioned his virility on account of his leg.

"I have news from the Old Man," Baelor says quietly. "Your sister is a widow again, it would seem – the kitten is the king."

* * *

There's a vicious triumph in Sansa's eyes when he tells her of Joffrey's death, and if there is a flicker of sorrow when he tells her that the Imp has been accused of the King's murder, well, Margaery told him that the Imp is reputed to have tried to help Sansa while they were together at court, and the flare of jealousy in his gut is completely unreasonable.

Her nightmares abate that night, but she still sleeps in his arms and he finds himself lying awake simply looking at her, wondering how he'll ever cope when she inevitably takes rooms of her own when they return to Highgarden – fool though he knows he must be, he fears that he might have done the wrong thing and fallen quite in love with his little wife.

It's just so difficult _not_ to love her – she's so sweet and gentle, but there's a surprising core of pure steel behind her lovely eyes, a fire that outshines her hair.

Her hair, of course, is at least part of what started his descent into madness – he can't seem to get enough of it, the feel and look and scent of it. It's almost as addictive as the taste of her lips, a taste he's been getting in greater volume since she started prolonging their morning and evening kisses, knotting her fingers into his hair and pressing closer to him, making those excruciatingly pleasant little sounds, seeking something he doesn't think she truly understands, not yet – but he intends on being the only one to teach her.

The possessive delight in knowing that he is the only man to have ever touched her, to have ever truly kissed her, burns brighter and hotter with her every shocked little gasp when he touches some new expanse of skin or curls his tongue around hers a different way. She's eager to learn, but he's reluctant to press her too far for fear of hurting her again – he worries that if he hurts her again, she'll never want to share his bed, and that is enough to banish even his persistent daydreams of her body.

However, Sansa seems to have other plans.

* * *

"Have I mispleased you, Willas?"

He looks up from his books just in time to see her slide closed the latch on the door, startled by her sudden appearance in his study – Grandfather is always sure to appoint a room with at least a study, if not a small library for him when he visits.

"I- What on earth do you mean, Sansa?"

She hesitates at the door, folding her fingers together, but then that Stark steel flashes hard in her eyes and she lifts her head.

"I thought that you would want to- to lie with me again, once your leg was better, but you have not. Have I mispleased you?"

He cannot finds words to answer her, not when she's so far from the truth for it to be laughable. Hysterics rather than fine speeches spring to mind, and he forces them aside in favour of holding out a hand to her.

His breath hitches when she straddles his lap as easily as if she's done it a hundred times (and she might have, or near as makes no difference, because do they not sit like this every morning and every evening and kiss each other senseless, in just their smallclothes and her shift, until he's so hard he can't see straight and she's soaking through her smallclothes but neither of them can quite bring themselves to touch the other enough?).

"Have I mispleased you, my lord?" she asks again, the steel gone and replaced with the most terrible mix of hurt and fear he's ever seen. "I will leave you-"

His hand is in her hair before he can think, and his mouth is on hers before she can finish speaking. The thought of her leaving him is unbearable ( _fool, romantic fool, she's been your wife for just more than a month and you're already mad for her)_ and he will not allow it, cannot allow it, and so he kisses her and kisses her and presses her tight against him, crushes her body against his desperately, pushing his tongue into every nook and cranny of her mouth until he can't be sure whether it's her or himself that he's tasting, because her tongue is in his mouth and just as eager as his own.

"You could not misplease me, Sansa," he gasps, gulping for air when they pull apart just far enough to breathe. "Never, do you understand?"

"Then why will you not touch me?" she demands breathlessly, still clinging to him, still leaning her forehead against his, still staring deep into his eyes. "You kiss me every day, but you will not touch me. I do not understand!"

The thought comes to him from nowhere, glorious and radiant and so utterly perfect that he cannot believe it did not occur to him before.

"Sit on the desk, Sansa," he urges, lifting her up by the backs of her thighs so suddenly that she squeaks in surprise. "Right on the edge, sweet girl, right there, now pull up your skirts, Sansa, pull them up for me-"

"Willas, what are you doing?" she asks, her cheeks deep cerise pink and her eyes dark.

He grins up at her, already tugging down her smallclothes, and winks.

"Kissing you, my lady – what else?"

He barely has the patience to get her smallclothes down and off, tucking them into his chair at his hip so he will not forget where they are, before he leans in to taste the soft skin on the inside of her knee. How has he not done this for her already? Gods, he's dreamed of it for weeks, but it never occurred to him to actually _do_ it, not until now, not until he was sure she wanted it as much as him-

She spreads her legs with a sigh, urging him higher up her thigh with a hand resting lightly on the back of his head, tugging impatiently at his hair, and although she may not understand it consciously, her body knows what it wants and reacts without asking her permission.

She's making those noises again, chirps and peeps of what he now knows for certain to be pleasure, and when he glances up and sees her head tilted back slightly, eyes hooded and mouth slightly open, _his_ body nearly reacts without asking his permission.

She squirms when he shifts his hands under her thighs, curling around them to spread her wider, slipping his thumbs between her lips to open her up to him, and when he does…

"Gods, Sansa," he groans, leaning closer and breathing deep. She smells musky, deep and heady, but there's still that ever-present hint of not-rosemary that clings to her skin and hair. It might be more his cock than his head thinking, but he's sure he's never smelled anything so good in all his life. "Gods. So beautiful."

"Am I?" she breathes, sounding almost drunk, her grip on his hair tightening. "Am I beautiful?"

"The most beautiful thing I've ever seen," he assures her, his voice rough with barely-leashed want, licking along the crease of her thigh and drawing a startled moan from somewhere high in her throat. "Truly, Sansa, my lovely girl, I've never seen anything so beautiful before, not ever."

She tastes even more beautiful than she looks when he licks right up along her, but her moan – deeper and headier than her scent – is the most beautiful thing of all, paired as it is with a long, sinuous arching of her back and an instinctive roll of her hips.

 _She wants it as badly as I do_ he realises giddily, _just as badly as I do, gods, she tastes so good, why didn't I do this before?_ "Your cunt, Sansa, gods, it's perfect," he gasps, "so perfect, Sansa, my beautiful girl," he sighs, pressing harder against her, tracing the tip of his tongue around her-

"Oh, Willas, please," she whimpers, pulling on his hair and he slips his tongue into her, as deep as he can, and curls, and she lets out a keening cry that almost has him spilling in his smallclothes it's so wonderful.

"Sweet girl," he moans, turning his head and nuzzling into her thigh for a moment, desperately seeking some measure of control. "Oh, Sansa, my girl, my sweet girl, I could kiss your cunt forever and be happy with nothing else, I could-"

She pushes him back in and he goes willingly, his lips closing around her nub and gods, why does she have to even _sound_ so good ( _fool, you're so smitten you don't even realise it, what will you do if she doesn't feel the same, if she doesn't want you the same way)_ and she falls apart with a cry that undoes him completely and a flood of warmth and wet when he slips two fingers inside her and crooks them just so, just enough to push her over the edge.

It takes a long while for them to collect themselves enough even to look at one another, and Willas can't help but smile at the flush spreading right down Sansa's neck, across her cleavage ( _and lower, I'll get her shift off tonight, I know I will)_. She almost slithers off the table, back into his arms, and rests her head against his shoulder.

"That was _wonderful,_ " she whispers, pressing a shy kiss just under his ear. "I didn't know… Is it usually like that?"

If he tells her yes, then he'll have to live up to his promise and make her come like that every time they lie together. If he says no, she'll be disappointed and might not be quite so enthusiastic as she was just now. Either way, she might become a selfish lover – but he doesn't think he'd mind that particularly, so long as she's _his_ lover, and his alone.

"I'll try my best to make it like that for you, Sansa," he promises instead, his hands still on her thighs under her skirts. "Only good, remember?"


	5. Chapter 5

Baelor lives up to his nickname when he and Rhonda host Willas and Sansa for dinner two weeks into their stay in the High Tower, smiling brightly at everything and anything – but Willas knows his uncle well enough to know that there is something amiss.

"Tell me, nephew," Baelor murmurs later that night, when he guides Willas out onto the balcony overlooking the city while Sansa and Rhonda chat inside by the fire. "What do you know of House Greyjoy?"

"More than most, uncle, but you are aware of that. I know that they bleed red, the same as the rest of us, although listening to them you would think they had saltwater rather than blood flowing through their veins."

Baelor grins then, shaking his head.

"My father was furious when he realised I'd brought you with me to fight the reavers that day," he says. "So furious he almost took my head as soon as he had you knighted."

Willas cannot help but laugh – he remembers that day with as much clarity as his wedding day and the tilt against Oberyn Martell, remembers kneeling in bloodied armour before his grandfather and swearing his oaths, remembers the Old Man attacking Baelor with the same blade he had just used to knight Willas while roaring his fury (and the Old Man's roar would deafen most men, can ring louder than a mob when he wants it to) before Willas had even managed to stand up straight as _Ser_ Willas, not quite sixteen years old and the pride of Houses Tyrell and Hightower for a full week before he was crippled (he could probably still claim to be the pride of House Hightower, if Grandfather had anything to say about it, but Loras and Margaery are quite clearly the pride of House Tyrell).

"What of House Greyjoy, uncle?" he asks, leaning back against the balustrade and watching Sansa's shy smile grow under Rhonda's careful encouragement. "I thought they were busy desecrating my wife's homeland?"

"Hmmph," Baelor grumps, shaking his head. "You haven't heard of Balon Greyjoy's untimely demise, then, or the Crow's Eye's return?"

His breath catches in his throat at the thought of Euron Greyjoy. Willas never met the Crow's Eye, thank the gods, but he's heard the stories, lived in Oldtown for long enough to know that no man on the seas is as feared as the captain of the _Silence._

"He's been named King of the Isles," Baelor tells him softly. "And he plans on taking the whole of Westeros, as far as we can tell, and then venturing beyond – they say he's sent Victarion off to Essos to seek the Dragon Queen."

"Have there been attacks? The Shield Islands- Gods, Baelor! Garlan and Leonette are in Brightwater Keep, they're close enough to the coast to be in danger!"

"It is good to see that I have one nephew at least who has the common sense to not wish to face Euron bloody Greyjoy in single combat. You and your lady should return to Highgarden, Willas, and send word to your father in the capital, idiot that he is – he's Warden of the South, the fat fool, but if he and that buffoon Redwyne don't do something about the Greyjoys reaving along the coast, the Old Man and I will."

The Hightowers never made a secret of their contempt for Willas' father, for most of the other Reacher Lords, and he wonders if being raised by Baelor and the Old Man influenced his own relationship with his father. He spent fourteen of his twenty-four years in Oldtown, in the High Tower, and he's always felt more a Hightower than a Tyrell – something he thinks might stand the Reach in good stead in the uncertain times ahead. The Tyrell words may be _Growing Strong,_ and they may have lived up to them with Margaery queen to two kings – three, if Grandmother has his way, he has no doubt of that – and Loras a White Sword and all the rest of it, but he fears that there will be a dire need for someone to light the way in the very near future.

"You think they'll attack Oldtown?" he asks, incredulous. "Baelor, _nobody_ has ever attacked Oldtown – Aegon the bloody Conqueror had better sense than to destroy the centuries worth of knowledge accumulated in the Citadel. He was crowned in the Starry Sept, for gods' sakes!"

"Perhaps the Crow's Eye thinks himself worthy of a coronation to equal the Conqueror's – I cannot say, Willas, but the Old Man agrees with me. It would be better for you and Lady Sansa to return to Highgarden. I've half a mind to send Rhonda and the children with you."

Baelor married late in life and his oldest son, Daeron, is only thirteen – he was Garlan's squire, last Willas heard. _The same age as my wife,_ Willas thinks queasily. Sansa's age still jars whenever he accidentally thinks of it, but he has become very good at avoiding any thought of it. She is his wife now, and that is the main thing.

But Baelor's other children, Merill and Olwyn, would be more than welcome at Highgarden.

"I think Sansa has been lonely for some time," Willas says thoughtfully. "We will leave for Highgarden as soon as preparations can be made – Rhonda and the children would be most welcome, if they would like to join us."

Baelor visibly relaxes, his smile easing into the grin that earned him his nickname, the grin that makes him as much the Beacon of the South as the Old Man is the Voice of Oldtown.

"I did hope you'd say that," he sighs, chiming his cup against Willas'. "You know, there are days when I'm half-tempted to have your fool father killed off so you might take his place – there's a reason the Hightowers are feared as we are, and you're more Hightower than most of my beloved brothers and sisters. You'll make an excellent Lord of the Reach, lad."

"Beloved," Willas snorts, blushing at the compliment and desperately trying to steer the conversation away from it. "Baelor, it's an open secret within the family that all of you detest one another."

"Untrue!" Baelor protests, his grin never faltering. "I'm passing fond of your mother and Lynesse!"

"Only in _passing_ – when last did you speak to Mother in person? And when last did Lynesse's whatever he is in Lys allow her to send a raven to you?"

"Oh, I spoke to Alerie when last I visited Highgarden – that was what, four years ago? Quite often enough, I say. The Old Man agrees, you know."

Willas sniggers, shaking his head and ducking Baelor's mocking swipe.

"And you're so fond of your younger brothers and sister?" his uncles teases, diverting his hand and ruffling Willas' hair. "Well, of Garlan, of course, but Margaery and Loras? Don't make me laugh, lad – you're loyal to them, yes, but I don't think there's a man, woman or child who's ever met my prettiest nephew who hasn't wanted to slap him silly, and as for Margaery… Well, the fat fool let's her be called "the rose of Highgarden," doesn't he? I wonder what they'll all do when they realise that your wife is lovelier than Margaery could ever hope to be."

"Weep, I imagine," Willas laughs. "Weep that she's married to me, and that Father never could manage to convince Loras to at least pretend to have some serious interest in women."

"Renly Baratheon would have died sooner if he had, and of jealousy rather than politics."

"Hush now, uncle," Willas chastises lightly, unable to hold back a grin. Loras and Renly were never quite so discreet as they might have hoped around the Stormlands and the Reach, although certain questions were raised by how little was thought of their excessive closeness while they were in King's Landing. "Someone might hear you. They say the Spider's web has no end, after all."

"Pox on the bloody Spider," Baelor huffs. "Pox on the whole of King's Landing. Better we ruled ourselves, again – fine King and Queen of the Reach you and your Sansa would make, I tell you."

"She'd rather be Queen in the North, I think," Willas sighs, the lightness of the earlier moment vanquished by memories of despair in Sansa's eyes. "When Grandfather said that this Roose Bolton had been given Winterfell – I swear on all of the Seven, Baelor, I've never seen or heard anything so terrible as her reaction. _I_ felt sick, never mind her."

"The Boltons' sigil is a flayed man, which I say speaks volumes, and by all reports they're not a House to trust. It's no wonder Ned Stark bred dislike of them into his daughter."

"And yet his son took Roose Bolton as one of his generals. Bah, I don't understand Northerners – I barely understand Sansa half of the time, and I've yet to introduce her to someone without their commenting on how very Tully she is, so she can't be _that_ much a Northerner."

"She's a Northerner, alright, no matter how like her mother she might look. You only have to look at what she's come through to see that. Her mother's sister went mad after a tiny fraction of the pain your wife's seen, and by all reports… Well, your goodmother _did_ release the Kingslayer without your goodbrother's say, for no clear reason at all. There's a madness in the Tullys, and if it were to strike anyone, your little lady is a prime candidate, is she not?"

"There's a madness in the Starks, too, though," Willas says darkly, turning away from the bright warmth of the room to look out over the city, a mass of twinkling lights topped with inky, starry skies, spreading out as far as the harbour. It's beautiful during the day, but he's always loved the view from high up in the Tower at night. "Her aunt and Rhaegar Targaryen, her uncle defying Mad Aerys as he did – I may have been a child then, Baelor, but I remember. More than anyone would guess. I was always very good at listening when I shouldn't have."

"Aye, you were at that – it earned you a caning more than once, if I remember correctly."

"It got you out of an earful from the Old Man more than once, if _I_ remember correctly."

Baelor waves that aside with a good-natured grimace, but he's serious as soon as he turns back to Willas.

"Take Sansa and get to Highgarden. It's the safest place in the Seven Kingdoms, for my money – that it can't be attacked by sea and isn't besieged by Lannisters or infested with Boltons makes it the best chance you have of keeping your little wife safe. Go home, Willas – go home and fix whatever it is was broken in her by the Lannisters, and then fill Highgarden with boys as clever as you are and girls as sweet as she is. The gods know that you both could do with a spot of happiness."

* * *

She smells even sweeter when she's soaked and naked and sitting in his lap in the bath, he's just discovered.

It takes him a long while to get himself into the bath even on a good day, because there's an irritating amount of careful manoeuvring of his leg to worry about, but Sansa had appeared around the screen in just a short linen robe and helped him in without a word, and then she shed the robe and climbed in after him.

It's as if the steam unleashes something in her hair as it dampens it, and the not-rosemary scent of her is everywhere – not that he wants to escape it, no, but he can't quite understand how it could be so lovely.

She pulls her lips away from his with a sigh, sitting back on her heels and just _looking_ at him, so intently that he feels as if no one's ever looked at him before, not a single person before Sansa, his Sansa, his beautiful little wife, his lady, his sweet girl, the woman who is fast becoming his everything, so fast that it terrifies him.

"I want to try again," she whispers, a flush creeping up her cheeks and down her neck. The water is deep enough to cover much of her breasts – or at least, it would be if one was not cradled in his hand, soft and full and a perfect fit to his palm, nipple pink and swollen and peeking through his fingers – and warm enough to rise a flush in both of their skins, but the pinkness that spreads across Sansa's face and neck is different, something more secret and intimate, to be shared only with him.

After a long moment of trailing his fingers idly across her blushing skin, her words penetrate the haze of lazy arousal fogging his mind.

"Do you mean it?" he asks, astonished. "Truly?"

"Everything else has felt so good," she says, ducking her head so her hair falls in a damp tumble of copper and heaven around her face. "I think that it might be good this time, now that we don't have to worry about my maidenhead."

 _Everything else._ He's made her come at least twice a day since she came to him _(for him)_ in his study a fortnight, fingers and tongue working her so thoroughly she's barely been able to walk straight or sit still, but he never…

"Gods, Sansa," he groans, pressing his face into the swell of her breasts above the water. "Are you certain? Truly, honestly certain?"

"I want to try," she says honestly, her eyes wide and blue and dark, dark like a dawning sky, completely empty of any guile or deceit, full up with just plain, honest want and that now-familiar spark of apprehension. "I do not know… I want to try, Willas. Please? You said that it will be good. I want _you_ to feel good, too."

Oh, gods, why does she have to say things like that? So innocently does she tear him apart without even trying.

"Kiss me again, Sansa," he says, already pressing his mouth to hers. "Don't stop until you can't help it."

She does as he says, twisting her arms around his neck, her fingers into his hair, and gods, _gods,_ the sounds she makes as his hands slide across her soft, wet skin are like heaven and hell and sunshine and agony all rolled into one.

He slides one finger into her, just barely into her, just to test her ( _no need to be so gentle,_ he reminds himself, _she was screaming for more when you had three fingers inside her only last night)_ and seven hells but she feels perfect, so perfect that he can hardly breathe.

She whimpers against his mouth when he strokes his thumb over her nub, trembling around his fingers ( _when did I add another?)_ and digging her nails into his shoulders, tugging hard at his hair.

His hands are trembling when he settles them on her hips, trembling almost as hard as she is, but she's so hot and so damned _tight_ around his cock that he forgets to be nervous, forgets to worry about her, forgets everything by the feel of her sliding slowly, so slowly, up and down his cock-

"Willas," she gasps, her head falling back. "Oh, it's _good-"_

"That's it, sweet girl," he hears himself crooning, his words gusting across her neck as he leans in to taste her skin. "That's it, my Sansa," he sighs, keeping one hand on her hip and the other hand cupped around her mound, fingers stroking over her nub in time with the gentle rolling of her hips.

"My Sansa," he whispers again, loving the way it sounds, "my sweet girl, my lady, gods, Sansa, gods, I love you, I love you Sansa," he says, horrified and elated at the words tumbling from his mouth and unable to stop them either way, especially when they seem to spur her on, when her hips move faster and harder every time he tells her he loves her – and he _does,_ that's the truly frightening part of it all, he honestly does love her, more than he ever thought he would, and them only six weeks man and wife! "So much, I love you so much, I'll never stop, not ever, my Sansa-"

She keens, high and desperate, and pulls his mouth back to hers, kissing him furiously as she clicks into a rhythm that has them both in a frenzy, biting and clutching and crying out as they surge towards their peak, and when she comes before him she makes the most exquisite sound, tightens in the most agonizingly perfect way, that Willas sees stars as his teeth sink into the juncture of her neck and shoulder and he empties into her.

"Did you mean it?" she demands hoarsely, pulling his head up by his hair and forcing him to look muzzily into her eyes. _She's like one of those goddesses from the Summer Isles_ he thinks dozily, taking in her flushed cheeks, her swollen lips, the heave of her breasts as she tries to steady her breathing. _The ones you're supposed to worship with sex. I'll gladly pay her my dues._ "Did you mean it?"

"What? Sansa, what-"

"Did you mean it when you said you love me?" she demands again, her eyes blue, so blue, and utterly terrified. Gods, did he hurt her again? He can't have, can he?

"I- Yes, of course I did, I wouldn't have said it otherwise," he says, confused. "Sansa-"

She kisses him again, and there's so much happiness and love – _love!_ – in her lips, in her eyes when she pulls back and smiles at him, a smile brighter than Baelor's ever was, that he thinks he could die happy in that moment.

* * *

Her nightmares are worse than ever that night, and she screams so loudly that Aldwin rushes into their room with his dirk bare in his hand, sure that there is some attacker or assassin or other after climbing through the window.

Willas is completely at a loss – he had hoped, perhaps naively, that she would have an untroubled night after the sheer happiness she had exuded all day, and now he doesn't know how to deal with the grief and despair and terror that pour from her when he manages to wake her and pull her into his arms. He tries, though, strokes her hair and rubs her back and croons nonsense comforts into her ear as she sobs mindlessly, clinging to him so tight that his shoulders and arms are a mass of tiny bruises and nicks from her fingernails.

It takes several hours for her to fall back into an uneasy sleep, sprawled on top of him and still clutching him tight, and Willas lies awake and watches the sky lighten through the near-transparent white silk drapes over the windows, perversely glad that they return to Highgarden this morning – he can never before remember being glad to forsake Oldtown for his ancestral home, but he thinks that Sansa might be better served by the privacy he can provide for her at Highgarden.

Telling her he loves her seems to have broken a dam inside her, and much as he loves Baelor and the Old Man and the rest of them, Sansa is his priority now – she has to be.

She needs him more than anyone else ever has, after all, and he intends doing right by her. Only right. _Only good._


	6. Chapter 6

The Old Man himself comes to see them off, hefting Willas up into his saddle carelessly (or so it appeared, but everyone knows that Leyton Hightower would rather cut off his own leg than see any more harm come to Willas'), leaving him too his buckles and straps, and lifting Sansa into hers as if she were made of spun crystal.

"Safe journey," he says solemnly, reaching up to clasp Willas' wrist with a grin that belies his tone.

"Safe watch," Willas replies, as is custom, and then smiles. "Visit us at Highgarden, Grandfather – if nothing else, it would annoy Mother no end to see you coming, and she's hilarious when she's vexed."

"Might be that I will," the Old Man agrees, giving Willas' wrist a last squeeze before turning his attention to Sansa. "And you, my lady – if ever this grandson of mine turns out to be more a Tyrell than we supposed, the High Tower is always open to you."

She flushes pearly pink, rose when the Old Man kisses her hand, and then she giggles across at Willas as soon as the Old Man's back is turned.

"I think I understand why people are so wary of the Hightowers now," she whispers, still giggling behind her hand. "It's as if each of them is two different people."

"The urbane scholars and saints, and the loud-mouthed jesters and fools?" he teases, throwing his head back and laughing when she shushes him, giggling harder than ever. "No, no, it's true, Sansa – and it's served them in good stead all these years. The only thing the Hightowers lost when the Gardener Kings rose was their crown – they still have all the influence and wealth of kings, without the bother of having to actually rule."

"Watch your tongue, lad," Baelor calls, half-skipping down the steps to say his farewells. "We rule enough to do, and we do more than your fat fool of a father or his idiot cousin in the Arbor – all they do is complain about the Dornish and grasp at power in the Crownlands."

"You really must stop calling Father a fat fool," Willas says, but there is no real bite in his words – Baelor knows better than anyone save Garlan Willas' true opinion of the Lord of Highgarden, and his answering grin speaks volumes.

"Well, is there a lie in it?" the Old Man asks, suddenly returned from shouting at the servants arranging Sansa and Willas' baggage. "Your father has a belly like a eunuch and the brains of a goat – he is a fat fool! Thank the gods you took your mind from your mother's side."

"Grandmother Olenna is a clever woman," Willas says, knowing precisely how much the very thought of Olenna Redwyne bothers the Old Man. "Wouldn't you agree, Grandfather?"

The Old Man turns such an alarming shade of purple that Sansa's eyes widen in concern, but Willas and Baelor roar with laughter when he begins spewing a diatribe of such venom and volume that the entire city must be blushing as deep as Sansa.

"Don't be so long about returning to Oldtown, grandson," he bellows as he waves them off, catching the attention of every man, woman and child within half a mile of the High Tower. "And be sure to bring Lady Sansa!"

They stop at an inn every night, and as soon as the innkeepers put Willas' cane together with Sansa's hair and the roses on their clothes, they can't do enough – Willas is sure that the Queen Regent and the rest of the Lannisters will be furious when they realise just how quickly tales of the woman they now call the winter rose are spreading, gathering embellishment and tears as they travel.

Sansa blushes and ducks her head if she so much as hears winter roses mentioned, Willas has noticed, and so he requests that their meals be brought up to them in the privacy of their room once they've bathed.

He can see the looks of surprise when he and Sansa need only one room, when no request is made for a second bathtub, but he ignores them – let the whispers of the lovestruck heir and his little wife spread far and wide, the better to preserve Sansa's safety and cement the stories he knows Margaery and Grandmother will be telling in King's Landing.

Sansa sleeps better when he's close, she says, and that's another reason for keeping one room only – he sleeps better himself when he's close to her, the better to tend to her when she rips herself free of her night terrors. They repeat the pattern every night on the way back to Highgarden, riding all day and sleeping curled around one another after a long, hot soak at night.

"Has there been any word from King's Landing?" she asks in a small voice the night before they reach Highgarden as they bathe, sitting in his lap with her back to him in the chest-deep water and her face turned into his neck. "Of your sister, your father…?"

"Sansa, you don't need to speak of it," he murmurs, pressing a kiss to her hair. "I know how it distresses you – I will not hide things from you, not important things, but there has been nothing to cause you any concern."

"The… The Queen Regent. Has she asked of me?"

He sighs and nuzzles into her hair again, until he can taste the soft skin behind her ear.

"She can ask all she wants," he whispers, sucking softly on her earlobe until the tension eases from her shoulders and she sinks back fully against him. "You're mine now, Sansa Stark, and she can't have you back. She can go hang for all I care, and the rest of House Lannister with her – no one will ever hurt you again, my love, not if I have anything to say about it."

"You can't stop her if she truly wants me back," Sansa whispers, her body tensing again. "Your family – I don't understand why they helped me get away, but they'll send me back if that's what it takes, won't they? I'm not truly a Tyrell, not until I give you an heir."

A piece of the puzzle finally clicks into place, and Sansa's behaviour since they ventured to Oldtown suddenly makes sense.

"Sansa, is that why you were so eager for us to lie together again?" he asks, straightening up and turning her as best he can to face him. "Oh, sweet girl, no! No, we don't need to have a child straight away! What made you think that?"

"I- But I thought that that was why you married me," she says, frowning oh-so-prettily in confusion and leaning back against the side of the bath. "Margaery said-"

"I imagine Margaery said many things, most of which were half-truths at best. She can be quite inventive when she feels the need, my sister." He sighs and touches her face, tracing the shape of her nose, her cheekbone, her eye, her lips with the tip of his finger. "I imagine Margaery told you that I have been reluctant to marry – that much is true, I admit, but not for the reasons my siblings and Father assume. It has – or rather, had – nothing to do with my infirmity. I imagine she told you that Father was desperate for me to have an heir, because he worries desperately for my health because of my leg. This, which I see she did tell you – no, don't deny it, you're a terrible liar when it's just us, my love – is a blatant lie. Father would rejoice privately were I to suffer an unfortunate accident so he could name Garlan his heir."

"I'm sure he wouldn't-"

"Oh, he would, believe me on that," Willas assures her. "Sansa, sweetling – there are few people I trust entirely, and my father is not one of them, not any more than Margaery or Grandmother. I love my family, but they are… Ambitious, I suppose, and ambition makes many of them view even each other as pawns in the game."

"But who do you trust if not your family?"

"I trust some family. Garlan, obviously, and Leonette as well – I've known her since we were children, she was my second stepgrandmother's ward for a time. Grandfather, of course. Uncle Baelor and Rhonda, Aldwin, his wife Marian, and you. Nobody else."

"Me?"

"Of course you, my silly little wife," he laughs, tweaking her nose and rising a blush in her cheeks. "Why would I not trust you?"

"Why would you trust me?"

"Well, you are my wife, for a start, and the daughter of a Stark and a Tully – good reason for me to believe you trustworthy, even if you were not my wife. You never bent to what the Lannisters demanded of you during your captivity, no matter what they did to you- no, Sansa, do not deny it. I know they abused you, my love – I've seen the scars."

She fidgets, turning further as if to hide her back from him, and he sighs, takes her face in his hands, makes her look at him.

"If you can bear to look at my scars, Sansa, repressing my anger at seeing yours is a small price to pay – but all this is beside the point. You do not need to give me a child immediately, sweet girl, and you would do well to ignore a great lot of whatever advice Margaery gave you. Would you rather have your own rooms? I can send word ahead in the morning so that there will be chambers prepared for you, if you'd like. And you do not need to bathe with me, sweet girl. You'll have a lady's maid when we reach Highgarden, so you will not have need of me to help with your hair. Would you rather that?"

"No!" she insists, pressing closer to him. "I cannot sleep- When you get up during the night, I- I know you are gone. The nightmares are better when you're near."

That stuns him – he does sometimes leave their bed during the night, particularly if she falls asleep against his left side and manages to lock her foot around his knee; he disentangles himself from her and rubs feeling back into his leg so he is able to ride and walk the next day – but he did not know that she was aware of it.

"So you do not wish to keep separate chambers?"

She flushes deep pink, filling her whole cheeks with colour, and smiles shyly.

"Even if we do not- if we do not lie together, I like being close to you," she admits, ducking her head. "I like it when you-"

She says no more, but Willas has learned a great deal about what Sansa likes. He has not lain with her since the night in the bath in the High Tower, but he can't quite stop himself from kissing her constantly, uncaring of watching eyes and whispering tongues, can't keep his hands off her when she climbs so willingly into his lap as soon as they're alone, finds himself aching to hear those lovely, sharp little cries she gives as she falls apart under his mouth, on his fingers.

"I like that too," he teases, pulling her close again to lean into him, her shoulder tucked under his arm and her ear resting over his heart. "You turn the loveliest shade of pink when you-"

"Willas!" she shrieks, giggling even as she slaps his chest. "You mustn't!"

"Why not?" he demands mockingly, grinning down at her. "It's true, isn't it? You do blush so prettily when you come-"

She kisses him to keep him quiet, and it works embarrassingly well.

"You know," he says the following afternoon as they ride through the gates of Highgarden. "There are days when I can see the appeal of a wheelhouse."

He trained Gardener from he was a foal, and the horse – the biggest in Willas' personal stable, bigger even than Garlan's Florian – knows him better than it knows its mother, and his saddle is more comfortable than anyone else's, especially with the special adjustments made for his leg, but riding still exhausts him because he instinctively moves as if he has two fully functional legs, not one, and causes himself constant pain.

"You would hate a wheelhouse," Sansa says absently, looking about herself with curious eyes. They rode out through the main gates, but Willas has always preferred the Wayward Gate on the southern wall which leads into the open gardens between wall and stables, and so it is through it which they return. Father always detested the ride from the Wayward Gate to the castle proper, which of course meant Willas loved it all the more – he has always found himself at odds with his father over even the smallest of things, and that is almost as tiring as riding.

"Hate it, would I?" he challenges with a smile, leaning over to tug on the end of her heavy braid where it hangs over her cloak, vibrantly red against wool so dark a green that it's almost black. "What makes you say that?"

"You could not show off how intelligent you are if we were hidden away in a wheelhouse," she says, refusing to meet his eyes. "And that would be harder on you than having your leg drained, I think."

"Are you suggesting that I am vain of my intellect, my lady?"

"I am not suggesting anything. I am merely pointing out that you take pleasure in sharing the vast reserves of knowledge you have collected over the years."

"I could probably forge a chain in less than a year," he agrees, mock-earnestly, rolling his eyes when she finally gives in and giggles. "Be serious, though – it might be slower, but it would be a damn sight more comfortable for both of us, I imagine."

Sansa's back and thighs and backside had been a wreck of aches and pains from riding astride for the first time by the time they reached Oldtown, but she seems less troubled now – still, he would spare her further discomfort if he could.

"But less enjoyable," she points out, reaching up to tug a spray of late blossom from one of the apple trees lining the boulevard. She twists it into a garland and sets it on her hair like a crown, and he's certain that there's never been a woman more beautiful in all of time. "And I've come to quite like riding, I think."

He laughs at that.

"If you were riding any horse but Whisper, I think you'd hate it," he teases, nudging Gardener closer and catching her chin between gloved fingers. "If ever you tire of her, I'm sure there's room for you on Gardener's back with me."

She takes his kiss willingly, gladly, and even if she's still shy of returning his affection outside the privacy of their rooms – be they in Highgarden, Oldtown or any one of the inns they stopped in along the road home – he relishes the taste of her tongue dipping into his mouth for a brief moment before pulling away, feeling flushed and triumphant.

"Have you considered using crutches?" she asks as Aldwin patiently helps Willas down from his saddle with his eternal expression of unruffled contentment firmly in place.

"No use," Willas grits out, cursing as his knee almost buckles – it seems to exist in two states only, completely rigid or completely buckled – and catches his weight all on one arm draped over Gardener's back. "Leg's frozen most of the time, and it'd catch rather than be eased by crutches – I tried them when I was recovering."

He's surprised to find Sansa coming to his side, taking some of his weight, and supposes that he shouldn't be – she can't seem to bear to see anyone else suffering even a smidgen, for all that she keeps her own suffering tightly under lock and key.

"Just a thought," she says, smiling as best she can with him leaning so heavily on her and so obviously in pain. "Aldwin is gone for your chair?"

"Aye, he is- oh, seven bloody hells, not now."

"What is it?"

"The Gross has returned from visiting Aunt Mina at the Arbor," he groans, tilting his head to rest his brow against her temple. "Of all the bloody days for him to return, why today? Why now?"

The Lord Seneschal of Highgarden is fat enough to make Father look slight, and sweats even in the mild autumnal warmth of the fading afternoon. Willas has never liked his great-uncle, less because of the man's attitude towards him personally and more because of his attitude towards women. Malora Hightower, Willas' eldest aunt, called the Mad Maid out of her hearing - and the Old Man's - made sure that he had a healthy regard for the wellbeing of any woman he could claim to so much as know the name of, and he has always felt that Garth Tyrell could do with spending some time in Malora's company.

He was beyond relieved when Malora took to Sansa. His aunt's approval meant almost as much to him as the Old Man's and Baelor's.

"Nephew!" Garth shouts, shouldering past the men carrying Willas and Sansa's things into the keep. "You have been gone for a long while!"

"Only a month, uncle, a little more," Willas manages, forcing a smile and trying not to show how much pain he's in. "Allow me to introduce my wife, the Lady Sansa. My lady, my uncle, Lord Garth."

"My lord," Sansa says, dipping her head demurely but not moving from Willas' side. "It is a pleasure – I have heard much."

"Such a cold greeting!" Garth chides, smiling widely. Willas remembers Garlan introducing Leonette to the Gross, remembers how he had held her tight and kissed both her cheeks – Baelor greeted Sansa similarly when they arrived at the High Tower, but there is some intent that Garth wears like a cloak that Baelor lacked. "Well, I suppose we shall have a chance to better get to know one another over dinner-"

"Lady Sansa and I will be dining alone tonight," Willas says sharply. "And early, too, I think – there is much to be done if we are to successfully ward against the Ironmen's attacks on the western coast, and we have had a long journey from Oldtown. My grandfather is already marshalling his forces there to send them against the Greyjoys – Lord Paxter is doing the same, I hope?"

"Well, I-"

"You must have been at the Arbor still when my orders arrived," Willas says, his temper rising. "While Father is in King's Landing, uncle, I am Lord of the Reach. I expect word from Lord Paxter by the end of the week."

"Now see here, boy-"

"That is no way to address your lord, uncle. I see Aldwin is coming with my chair – we will discuss this further in the morning, along with these taxes I hear whispers of. Go, recuperate from your own long journey – we will speak in the morning."

He all but collapses into his wheelchair, and is surprised and slightly amused by the firm hand Sansa keeps on his shoulder as he wheels himself inside.

"You were very short with your uncle," she says, biting her lip and watching him lift himself up onto the bed when they reach the sanctuary of their chambers. "Is there some reason that I should be aware of?"

"Garth has been known to be… Indiscreet, I suppose, with regards women. Inappropriate, too. He has little tact and is a poor judge of when his attentions are wanted. I was uncomfortable with you being so close to him," he admits, settling himself on the mattress and leaning over to take off his boots. Sansa casts off her cloak, tossing it carelessly across the back of the chair at the dressing table, and climbs up beside him to help.

"Brave Ser Willas, defending his helpless wife from his lecherous uncle," she quips, a teasing light in her eyes. Since she has grown more comfortable with him, since she has come to feel safe in his presence, he has uncovered a surprising vein of wry wit in his little wife, one which he enjoys greatly.

His leg is inflamed when they finally work his breeches down and off, but it is a simple matter of loosening the straps of his brace and sending for ice to ease the pain. Sansa bathes and washes her hair while he cools the reddened flesh, and she sends word for dinner while he takes his turn in the tub.

He startles when she appears behind him and scrubs his hair for him, but she soon has him leaning back into her hands, little rumbles of pleasure rising up from the depths of his chest in mortifying volume – not that he can stop them, not with her long, slim fingers rubbing slow circles across his scalp as she hums under her breath and doesn't smell of rosemary, not quite.

Attractive though he undoubtedly finds her – and he does – it's almost a relief to not have to make love to her. He still cannot quite get past the knowledge that she is so close to being a child, no matter how mature she seems, no matter how achingly perfectly she fits into his arms, against his body, and he is glad to have convinced her that they do not have to lie together to share a bed (cannot get past it until she has those lovely fingers or that lovely cunt around your cock a voice whispers, a voice that sounds disquietingly like Grandmother). He enjoys the company of having a wife though, of having someone to share simple pleasures like dinner or music or even just the sunset over the Mander of an evening.

The little intimacies – washing his hair, brushing hers, the warm weight of her on his chest at night – are a welcome bonus, of course, one he relishes, and he hopes that Sansa will come to feel yet more comfortable in his company, so that she might bring her worries to him rather than turning to Margaery for her dubious brand of advice.


	7. Chapter 7

They have a week before Garth prevails in forcing his company on them for dinner, and Sansa seems nervous.

"You were not so apprehensive of dining with Baelor or Grandfather," Willas notes, settling into his wheelchair and reaching for his boots. "Have I truly scared you away from the Gross so thoroughly?"

She hesitates and then shakes her head, letting a single curl spring loose from the braid she's been pinning in place on the back of her head for the past twenty minutes.

"Oh, bother," she grumps, and he catches her hand before she can pin the errant lock of hair back in place.

"Leave it down," he tells her softly, pressing a kiss to the thin skin and fluttering pulse on the inside of her wrist. "Be content with the knowledge that it will drive me half mad all through dinner, and let that amuse you when Garth turns into a boring drunk."

She rolls her eyes and turns to face him fully on the dressing table chair, twisting her fingers through his.

"Marian told me that he… That she…"

"That she's Garse's mother? Yes, she is. Did she tell you the whole story?"

Aldwin's wife Marian bore the elder of Garth's bastards when she was barely older than Sansa, and he had cast her aside without so much as a second glance when he discovered she was with child. He claimed Garse, of course – not that he had much choice, when even as a babe it would have been impossible to deny his son – but Marian had never forgiven him, and had grown to despise him all the more when he fathered Garett, the younger of his sons, on her younger sister. Garth has a taste for younger women – women Sansa's age or a little more, but only a little – and Willas is wary of how his great-uncle has behaved towards Sansa so far. He has not been overtly presumptuous, but his gaze lingers too long on the swell of her hips, her bosom, her mouth, and more than once Willas has had to fight back an impulse to hit the Gross.

Having Marian serve as Sansa's lady's maid is peace of mind for Willas if nothing else – he trusts the woman, who served as his wet nurse when his mother's milk dried up, as much as he trusts her husband, and she is motherly and sensible enough to tend Sansa without trying to turn her into yet another pretty Highgarden airhead. She's also sensible enough not to be jealous of Sansa's beauty (and Willas is perfectly aware that he is, perhaps, biased in Sansa's favour, but he cannot wait for her to grow into her loveliness, because then she will be stunning).

"She did – is he truly such a wretch as all that?"

"And more, I don't doubt – but if he so much as attempts to lay a finger on you, I'll cut his heart out with a butter knife."

She laughs at the absurdity of the threat, but he knows that his being willing to defend her honour – even if only in jest – is a talisman to her, one more foundation block to their relationship.

"Come here," he says with a smile, tugging on her wrist until she climbs into his lap. Her skirts gather at her knees when she kneels over him, cumbersome and awkward had he any lewd intentions, but he merely takes her face in his hands and looks at her for a long moment.

"My lord?"

"Do you know, Sansa, I think I might actually cut Garth's heart out with a butter knife is he lays a finger on you," he sighs, brushing his thumb across her lower lip. "A kiss for good luck from the fair lady?"

She blushes, but she still leans in and kisses him with her hands twisted into his hair and her body as close to his as she can get it with her skirts in the way.

"Mmm," he sighs happily when at last she pulls away. "I suppose we had better face the Gross now, hadn't we?"

* * *

His happiness fades with every passing minute during dinner, and Sansa's shoulders straighten harder and tighter with every word coming from Garth's greasy mouth.

Willas keeps as close to Sansa as he can in his wheelchair, and Garth is on the opposite side of the table from her, but still it seems as if he's too close, as if Sansa is within reach of his grasping fingers, and Willas temper is uncharacteristically short as a result.

Garth is in the middle of a longwinded explanation of why Dornishwomen are so attractive when Sansa's hand lands on Willas' thigh, her fingers digging hard into his skin through his breeches, and he decides that enough is enough.

"Pardon me, uncle, but I find myself fatigued – between my leg and the long hours spent organising the defences these past days… Well, I am sure you understand. You must excuse us-"

"Oh, Lady Sansa could stay for another few cups, I'm sure," the Gross laughs, waving a decanter of Arbor gold about in what Willas assumes is supposed to be a tantalising manner. "What do you say, niece? Care to listen to more of your old uncle's tales?"

Sansa's cheeks are flaming red, crimson almost, and Willas can feel the sickening urge to find a sword just so he can bury it in Garth's fat belly rising.

Rather than do anything so stupid and rash as that, he pushes himself back from the table and looks to Sansa with what he hopes are convincingly pleading eyes.

"I am afraid I must beg my lady's company," he sighs. "My leg, uncle – it has pained me most terribly since I returned from Oldtown, and my lady's gentle hands are a balm to old hurts."

Garth's eyebrow rises musingly and Willas curses his choice of words.

"I'm sure they are," he says, his words laced with so much innuendo and meaning that Willas' stomach turns. He can see his disgust mirrored in Sansa's face, although there's a sheen of fear in her wide eyes, too, and Willas wishes he could guard her from anyone who might dare to hurt her or take her or even touch her, almost, but he knows that all he can do is hold her and hope the nightmares aren't too bad.

"Goodnight, uncle," he says firmly, motioning for Sansa to follow him as he wheels himself towards the door of the dining room. "Pleasant dreams."

* * *

Sansa thumps down onto her chair at the dressing table with a huff, and Willas laughs bitterly.

"I am sorry, my love," he says, bringing himself as close to her as he can and touching her still-flushed cheek. "But he is difficult even while sober."

She smiles wanly and covers his hand with her own.

"I have heard worse," she says, something flashing deep in her eyes, and the urge to kill every Lannister that ever walked the Seven Kingdoms to avenge Sansa's pain rises stronger even than the urge to kill the Gross. She has shared some of her travails with him, Joffrey's cruel words and crueller orders, and even just her sparse retelling was enough to set his blood boiling. Even now, the hatred that burns in his gut is enough to make him want to take her in his arms and never let go, as if that might protect her.

"Would you like me to comb out your hair?" he asks, changing the subject as thoroughly as he can and slipping his hand back into the soft hair behind her ear. He is grateful that his wheelchair is so high, higher than the plans Oberyn sent so long ago, modelled on his brother's wheelchair. Willas' needs are not and hopefully never will be the same as Doran Martell's. "It will be wild tomorrow if we don't."

She smiles gratefully and turns, pulling pins from high up on her head as he pulls the ribbon at the bottom of her braid and begins to untwist the long rope of her hair.

"I don't understand how you're so kind," she says softly, pulling her hair loose on top of her head and shaking it out around her shoulders. Even now, when they're in the middle of such serious conversations, his breath catches at how beautiful her hair is, fire brought down from the North just to warm him, just for him. The thought of anyone else (any man) touching Sansa's hair makes him absurdly angry. He's embarrassed at the notion of her ever discovering just how enamoured with her hair he is, has been since the moment he first saw it loose. "You must be so unhappy here at Highgarden, but you don't let yourself become bitter or sad. How do you manage it?"

"I did not realise that I was managing anything," he says honestly, startled by her question. Or perhaps startled out of his musings on her and her hair and how violently protective he apparently is of his lovely little wife. "I may have been happier in Oldtown, but do not think that I am actually unhappy here at Highgarden. It is a singularly beautiful place, and I have Mother, had Garlan – I have you, don't I? And besides," he adds, "Highgarden is mine in a way Oldtown will never be, and I intend to make sure my father does not destroy it before you and I return it to what it was before the Conquest."

"What do you mean?"

"A haven of learning surpassing everywhere but the Citadel," he breathes, separating her hair and starting to comb it out. "A city to rival King's Landing or Lannisport in size and grandeur. The most beautiful place in the Seven Kingdoms – it's lovely now, true, but it can be more. It will be more. We will make it so, you and I." He presses a kiss to the back of her neck, just above her gown. "You and I, Sansa."

* * *

He is back on his feet the next day, the ache in his leg eased to a manageable (bearable) level, and it is with his mobility restored that he encourages Sansa to break her fast in the gardens with him.

She curls her arm through his and insists on carrying the basket out behind Aldwin, folding chairs balanced on his shoulder and matching table under his other arm. She still watches everything as they pass with those wide, astonished eyes, and he loves her innocence.

"I still don't understand how we can make it more beautiful," she confides once they're settled in the arboretum, sunshine splintering through the thick veil of leaves above their heads. "Everything here is just so… I can't see how we could improve it."

Boys with your eyes and girls with your hair, he thinks idly before catching himself. He can only hope that he didn't say that aloud. It strikes him though, after that, how very beautiful their children will be.

"I think we could start with the keep," he suggests, spreading thick strawberry preserve on a slice of bread and passing it over to her. "I would love to see it alive, Sansa – for all how big the family is, so few of them stay here with us, and we rarely have visitors. When I was growing up, the High Tower was always so busy – I want that here, too. I want to always have something to do, someone to talk with. The only people who ever seem to visit us are either Margaery's little friends or on their way further south, to Dorne or Oldtown. I want people to travel the roseroad for Highgarden."

She smiles, lips red from the preserve and the raspberries she's been picking at all morning, because Cook packed them on the very top of the basket, and it seems the most natural thing in the world for him to lean over and kiss her, chasing the taste of the sweet, sweet fruit deep into her sweet, sweet mouth. He often kisses her in public, unable to stop himself from kissing her deeper than perhaps is appropriate for any company save their own, but he's never gone this far, never kissed her with the same ardour and intent as he expresses during their morning and nightly explorations.

"Willas!" she gasps when he urges her off her chair and into his with him, urges her into his lap. Her skirts are split for riding – the thought alone is enough to drive him half mad – and she settles easily into place atop him. "Willas, someone might see!"

She's blushing, somewhere between the pearlescent pink he's pinpointed as the hallmark of her arousal and the cerise which announces her embarrassment, and he wonders if she herself knows which she is feeling more strongly.

"Let them," he says firmly, burying his hands in her hair and pulling her mouth to his again. "Let them see, Sansa, let the whole world see that I love you, little wolf."

She nips at his lower lip then, surprising them both if the fresh blush that spreads down her neck is anything to go on, and he's dizzy with the feel of her and the taste of her by the time she finally begins to pull away from him properly.

"You're a wicked man, Willas Tyrell," she laughs, cerise in the cheeks now but smiling wide enough to light up the whole of the Reach. "A terrible, wicked man."

* * *

It is another month of avoiding Garth, organising the defences of the western coast and wandering the gardens while plotting the changes they will make when Highgarden becomes theirs before the raven arrives from King's Landing.

Sansa's nightmares terrify Willas that night, never mind her, because she screams and screams and thrashes wildly in their bed, but another week and they're riding north along the roseroad. She huddles deep into the hood of her cloak, riding as close to him as she can force Whisper, and he spends more time with his hand in hers than with both hands on the reins.

He may not like Margaery, but he does love her, and she has never needed him more than she does now.


	8. Chapter 8

King's Landing stinks worse even than Willas remembers, and he blinks at the realisation that it's been almost nine years since last he visited the capital – he hasn't been back since before he was knighted, before he was crippled, and he hasn't missed it at all.

Sansa cowers deeper into her cloak, her eyes luminous in the shadow of her hood, bright with a sort of sickened panic that cuts him right to the quick. She's become more reticent as they came nearer to the city, and nothing has been able to break her from her reverie.

"You are not alone anymore," he reminds her softly, reaching over to take her hand as they ride through the gate. "Remember that, my love – the Lannisters cannot hurt you anymore. Joffrey is dead, and Cersei broken by the Faith. You are safe."

"I'll never be safe here," she says faintly, gaze fixed on the towering hulk of the Red Keep high above them. "Nobody with Stark blood will, not while the Lannisters are in power."

He strokes his thumb over her knuckles until her breathing evens out, and by that stage they are at the castle.

Father is waiting to greet them, Randyll Tarly and Mathis Rowan with him. Willas firmly ignores the three men until he and Sansa are both standing away from Gardener and Whisper, until he has his cane and Sansa has steeled herself sufficiently to pull back the hood of her cloak.

"Father," he says, nodding his head while Sansa dips a half-hearted curtsy, eyes flickering about nervously as she presses closer to his side. "As you sent for me, so I came."

"So you did," Father agrees gruffly, gesturing for them to follow. "Come, we have much to speak of."

Willas didn't miss the pin gleaming on his father's breast, a silver hand above the golden roses embroidered there, and he sighs heavily, pressing a kiss to Sansa's temple.

"Come, little wolf," he murmurs, guiding her with him. "The sooner we sort out Father's mess, the sooner we may return home."

* * *

"You actually thought Margaery, our Margaery, was a maid? Are you quite certain we're speaking of the same woman, Father?"

Sansa is stiff with shock in the seat beside him, and he's more worried about the ache building in the back of his knee than the disgust on his father's face, but Willas forces himself to look up without flinching as he digs his fingers into his own flesh and chases away the stiffness.

"She's been fucking Tomlin Oakheart, Arwyn's youngest son, this past year or more. You should have known that, Father – gods, how did you not? You're supposed to be Lord of Highgarden, and your daughter was carrying on an affair under your roof and you knew nothing of it!"

"Margaery's maidenhead was broken years ago because she spends so much time in the saddle-"

"Oh, bugger that," Willas snaps. "The Faith are about as likely to believe that as they are to believe anything you say, Father. Between this mess with Margaery and the rumours about Loras and Renly Baratheon, the Faith all but despises House Tyrell. I'll speak with the High Septon on the morrow."

"If the Faith despises House Tyrell, why will the old fart listen to you?" Father demands, standing up so rapidly that his belly jiggles.

"Because I, unlike most of our damned family, am publicly and actively devout," Willas bites back. "Because I was raised by the foremost patron of the Faith in the Seven Kingdoms rather than by you. Because my wife and I spent a huge amount of our stay in Oldtown in the Starry Sept, and word travels quicker among the Faith than it does among the ladies of court. Whatever hope I have, you have none, Father. I will speak to the High Septon on the morrow. I've already sent Aldwin to make my apologies for not being able to meet him today, but…" He sighs and looks down. "I'll have to send for a maester and have my leg drained if I'm to spend much time on my feet for the next few days."

* * *

Grand Maester Qyburn has an air that leaves Willas so uncomfortable that the treatment does nothing to ease his leg, and considering the small degree to which his leg is swollen, the draining is more painful and much longer than he had hoped.

He also has a letter that must now be sent to Oldtown, because there's something about the name Qyburn that niggles at the back of his mind and he hopes Baelor and the Old Man will be able to disprove his suspicions.

Sansa sits on a stool beside the bathtub when he eventually manages to manoeuvre himself into the water and strokes his cheek as he tries not to weep at the pain of the hot, scented water against his broken skin.

"I was thinking," he says tightly, "that you should spend tomorrow morning with Grandmother. I will be with the High Septon for some time, I imagine, and there is no point in you sitting about the sept on your own – unless you would like to come with me to pray, of course."

Always pale, her face is almost grey at the thought of visiting the Great Sept of Baelor, and he cannot say that he blames her, not after what she witnessed there.

"I will visit with Lady Olenna, if it please you," she says, her voice strained. "I- You are right, there would be no point in my accompanying you to the sept."

He lifts a hand and cups her jaw, his fingers splayed across her throat. He can feel the rapid thrum of her pulse, and he wishes more than anything that he hadn't been forced to bring her back to this place – but he couldn't leave her alone in Highgarden, and he couldn't not come to Margaery's aid, especially not knowing as he does what had happened to Loras.

"Garlan sent word, apparently," he says encouragingly. "He and Leonette should be here within the week – you and Leonette seemed to get along well enough when they stayed with us after the wedding."

She smiles slightly, no light reaching her eyes, and nods.

"I suppose," she admits, ducking her head. Her hair is still damp from her own bath, heavy and dark around her face, and he runs his fingers through it idly while he waits for her to continue. "I- I don't want to be alone here, but the sept- I cannot."

He tips her face up, her chin cradled in his fingers, and smiles in understanding.

"You do not have to do either, sweet girl," he promises. "Grandmother will keep you company until I return, and I swear that I won't let you be lonely."

She manages a stronger smile, some of the ice melting from her eyes, and he gives silent thanks to whichever god it was that gave Sansa some measure of comfort.

* * *

The High Septon greets him coolly, but as soon as he detects the faintest hint of Willas' discomfort he orders chairs to be brought and they settle on either side of the fireplace that is the closest thing to an indulgence in his solar.

"I would have come sooner, but my wife and I were planning on making another visit to Oldtown – my grandfather sends his regards, my lord."

"Lord Hightower, yes?"

"Yes, my lord – he is as horrified by the accusations being levelled at my sister as I am myself. When Father told me… I apologise, my lord, but I found myself rendered speechless with shock."

The man opposite him has an eyebrow arched, his scepticism obvious, and Willas ducks his head, making a great show of ashamed penitence. The Hightowers are not noted for their wiliness for nothing, after all.

"Margaery has always been wilful," he explains contritely, hating that once more he is forced to lie for his little sister. "She often broke our father's word and rode out without his permission. Is it not said that an eager horsewoman loses her maidenhead in the saddle, my lord? I am afraid that I simply cannot believe it of my sister that she would allow herself to be dishonoured in such a way."

"She would not allow it, you say?" the holy man asks. "Explain then these charges of adultery and fornication laid against her, Lord Willas."

Willas spreads his hands in supplication.

"Margaery is a clever girl, but perhaps- Have you considered that she has been so vehement in her insistence that she has never lain with a man because… I cannot bring myself to say it, my lord."

Oh, he hates himself for this, hates himself so much that he's sure he will never be washed clean of the stain this will leave on his soul.

"Because what, Lord Willas? What precisely are you suggesting?"

Willas sighs, gut twisting at the words he is about to say.

"Could it be, my lord, that my sister is reluctant… She is my father's only daughter, and there are few Houses in the Reach that have sons of anything approaching a suitable age who have not put forward a request for Margaery's hand. Mayhaps some suitor or other did not take Father's refusal well, and…"

He'll never forgive himself this, and hates his father for making him do this more even than he hates himself for doing it. Sansa had seemed sick at the thought of it, at the sheer depravity of the deception.

"You are saying that your sister was raped, Lord Willas?"

Willas shrugs helplessly, putting every ounce of acting skill that he has in reserve into his performance even as bile rises in his gorge.

"I cannot say for certain, my lord – perhaps if I may speak with her?"

* * *

Margaery flings herself into his arms as soon as the door of her cell is shut behind him, and he lowers his mouth to her ear to speak unheard.

"They will ask who it was raped you. You will say that it was at a feast, it was dark, you did not see his face, and you and Father will never ask anything of me again."

She pulls away, stunned, her eyes – eyes almost precisely like his own, he knows, but usually full of wicked intelligence that comes from the Redwynes, something he thankfully did not inherit, taking his less pointed intellect from the Hightowers as he did – wide and blank in her shock.

"Willas-"

He shakes his head and pulls her back into his arms.

"Pretend to be stricken," he orders lowly, mouth back at her ear. "Gods curse you, Margaery, pretend to be breaking down and telling me of a horrific experience. Act – you did it well enough for Joffrey bastard Baratheon, do it for Father's sake."

"Willas-"

"Cersei Lannister was forced to walk naked through the streets as penance for her sins," he snarls. "I will not see House Tyrell shamed like that. If there was any other way to make the Faith believe that you're anything other than a harlot, I would take it, but it seems Father's blustering has closed all other avenues. They will ask, you will say you did not see his face, and you will never, ever ask anything of me again, am I understood?"

* * *

He gets sick as soon as he's back in the privacy of his and Sansa's rooms again, utterly repulsed by the lies he perpetrated to no less a notary than the High Septon of the Faith of the Seven. He despises himself for allowing himself to be herded into such an arrangement, into such a… He can't even think what to call it, other than to say that it's worthy only of a Lannister.

"Willas?"

He spits out a mouthful of water before turning to face Sansa, pale and worried and so beautiful it hurts. Gods, how can he touch her now, after doing what he's done? He can hardly bear to look at her, and so he turns away and sits heavily in one of the chairs at the small table under the window.

"I lied to the High Septon this morning," he says, barely able to say the words. "I told him that Margaery was not a maid because she was raped. What have I done, Sansa?"

Her hand is soft and warm on the back of his neck when he lowers his head to his hands.

"If lying to the High Septon would give me back my brothers and sister, I would tell him that the sky was green and grass was blue," she says softly. "She is your sister, Willas. It is natural that you would want to protect her."

"Should protecting her make me feel so… So…"

"Dirty? Mayhaps. Lies… Lies are never good, unless they're told for a good cause. Someone must always bear the burden."

"You sound as if you have some experience in such matters, my love," he says, lifting his head and turning to face her. Her eyes are warm with so much compassion that he can hardly believe that she's barely thirteen years of age.

"Some," she says quietly, running her hands through his hair and smiling so sadly it breaks his heart. "Some."

* * *

They dine with his family that night – or rather, what little of his family is free to dine in the keep, meaning Father and Grandmother.

Sansa, previously so nervous of everything about King's Landing and the Red Keep, seems now to be the more grounded of the two of them, and Willas is more than a little ashamed of that, but he can't quite seem to rid himself of the sickness brought on by his earlier misdemeanours. She nudges him along into the conversation – although there's little conversing necessary for the two of them, arguing pettily as Father and Grandmother are. He wishes any of his siblings or his mother were present, but alas, Sansa is in the middle of something of a baptism of fire regarding the true faces of House Tyrell, and he is alone in his desire to guard her.

Eventually, though, it becomes too much, and even Willas is surprised to find himself pushing his chair away from the table and rising unsteadily to his feet – whatever Pycelle did to his leg, it was more hindrance than help – and motioning for Sansa to join him.

"After what I did today, I had hoped that perhaps you might control yourself for my sake, Father, but I see that I hoped in vain, as always. Forgive us if Sansa and I take our leave – now that my part in your filth is done, we will return to Highgarden at our earliest convenience."

"You will do no such thing," Father says sharply, turning away from Grandmother just as Sansa links her arm through Willas'. "You will remain here until I give you leave-"

"No, Father, I won't. I'll tell you precisely what I told Margaery – you will never, ever as anything of me again. Not after what you forced me to do this morning. Nothing. Sansa and I will return home at our earliest convenience, and you will make a great show of how sorry you are to see us leave."

"I need you on the small council!" Father insists, standing up and leaning over the table. "We have no master of laws-"

"Randyll Tarly is infinitely better suited to such a post than I am."

"Master of coin-"

"Uncle Garth, Father. I'm sure he crossed your mind already. Why truly do you want me here? So you can keep an eye on my health?"

Father scowls, his eyes narrowing.

"You will stay here," he orders flatly.

"Not unless you tell me why – if you don't give me a good reason, I'll be gone as soon as I've seen Garlan."

Father glances at Grandmother, and she nods.

"I need you here until we hear from Storm's End," he says. "If it falls, you're going to negotiate with the Targaryen boy."


	9. Chapter 9

"Once again, I'm Father's disposable son," Willas spits, hurling his cane aside and throwing himself down onto the bed, ignoring the twinge in his knee. "Once again, he places little importance on the life of his heir . Once again, he allows Grandmother to manipulate him into something that could and very probably will blow up in our faces. Marvellous. Just bloody marvellous."

"Be careful of your leg," Sansa frets, kneeling at his feet to tug off his boots. "It's been so sore this past while-"

"I know, I know," he sighs, his head thumping back against the thick feather mattress. "But I'm right, aren't I? Father's entire attitude towards his sons is that Garlan is the one he wants as heir, Loras is the one he worships and I'm the expendable one."

"I'm sure he does not think like that," Sansa offers, setting his boots against the wall and stepping out of her shoes. She has the daintiest little feet, he notes offhand, and then he sighs.

"The pity of it all is that it shouldn't bother me," he says, holding out his arm and waiting until she curls against his side. "He sent me away when I was little more than a babe-in-arms. I was four moons away from my fourth name day when I arrived at the High Tower, Sansa – how can I crave the affection of a man who gave me away before he gave me a chance to know him?"

She strokes his cheek, comforting him as he comforts her.

"He is your father," she says. "It does not have to make sense."

* * *

Word of the fall of Storm's End rocks King's Landing to the point where the smallfolk become hysterical, screeching about the end of the world and the coming of a day of judgement, where the Seven will descend from on high and mete out punishment to sinners.

Willas continues to ignore his family and spend his days with Sansa, trying not to strain his leg, because the stormroad is a hellish ride under ideal conditions and these, frankly, are far from ideal.

Five days into their stay in the capital, there comes a knock on the door of their solar, and Willas gladly stays seated and allows Sansa to answer.

Margaery stands in the doorway, dressed in largely shapeless grey linen, her hair hidden under a novice's veil and her head bowed penitently. There is a knight of the Kingsguard – the white armour makes Willas worry for Loras. How is he? Are his injuries as grievous as reported? – standing at her shoulder, Meryn Trant, one of the men who struck Sansa.

Margaery looks up and smiles so wickedly that Willas turns away in disgust.

"Might I come in, sister?" she asks Sansa, and Sansa steps aside to allow Margaery to pass. "My thanks – I have had little comfort during my confinement."

"I told the High Septon yesterday that I could not accept you into my custody," Willas says flatly. "You will not be returning to Highgarden with Sansa and I, Margaery."

"I came to express my gratitude, dearest brother," she says in return, coming to kneel beside his chair and resting her chin on the arm by his hand. "You told the High Septon what I was too ashamed to share with any, and your bravery… Oh, Willas, how will I ever repay you?"

He looks up at Trant and scowls.

"Leave," he orders. "Now. My sister will not escape from these rooms, I give you my word."

The door slams in Trant's wake, and Sansa's hands are trembling when she retakes her seat at his side.

"You will leave Sansa and I alone is how you'll repay me," Willas says shortly. "After what I was made to do-"

"Oh, stop that," Margaery admonishes, rising to her feet and pulling off the veil. "You did what had to be done, that's all. Father tells me you've agreed to go to Storm's End, and that you've made enquiries regarding Maester Qyburn, as he asked."

"I have not agreed to go to Storm's End. I've agreed to leave the city once I've seen Garlan, but I never agreed to go to Storm's End. As for Qyburn… Baelor got back to me with great promptness, and my suspicions were lamentably correct. He was expelled from the Citadel for dabbling in necromancy-"

"A madman then-"

"With a worrying degree of success. It's the kind of story that stays in Oldtown for months after it happens – I think I remember him having his chain melted down. Only his Valyrian steel wasn't thrown into the harbour, and that because it's too rare to risk losing any of it. Whoever the Faith elects as their champion for Cersei Lannister's trial by combat is doomed if this Robert Strong of Qyburn's truly has been raised to a white cloak."

"Oh do stop," Margaery insists, rising to her feet and tugging at her dress, pulling it this way and that in the vain hope of making it fit better. "If you believe that, you will believe anything at all."

"The Old Man believes it well enough. I'll take his word over yours, if it please you Your Grace."

Margaery's scowl is pretty, even Willas knows that, but he knows her well enough to see past the mask of simpering displeasure to the anger and annoyance lurking low back in her eyes. He knows her well enough to know that she would like nothing more than to slap him, but that she won't do that with Sansa present.

"Why are you being difficult, Willas?" she asks instead, folding her arms and pouting as she did when she was a child and he came home to visit without what she deemed a sufficient present. "Father is asking as much of the rest of us-"

"Oh yes, because Loras being put in a position where he can have all the glory he wants and never have to worry about taking a wife is asking much of him. Making you queen, over and over until one of your kings survives, that's asking much of you. Garlan being raised to Lord of Brightwater and sent there with Leonette to raise a family is asking much of him."

"Pardon me, I forgot that you are of course the neglected sibling, that you being heir and being given a beautiful young wife who you are clearly smitten with is such a challenge. My pardons, Willas, I overstepped."

"Why did you come here, Margaery? Besides to bother me and to make a great show for that bastard standing outside the door? Perhaps he can join your legion of admirers. I suppose you need a thug, what with the state of things here – at least until Father can engineer your marriage to Aegon Targaryen, should he and the Golden Company prove to be victorious."

"How dare you-"

"Stop it, both of you."

Willas and Margaery both turn to Sansa, utterly stunned to find her standing with her hands on her hips, her cheeks flaming, brilliant red, redder by far than her hair, her mouth twisted into a scowl that makes no effort to be pretty like Margaery's and which is all the more compelling because of its honesty.

"This is what the Lannisters do," she says, tears brimming in her eyes. "They did this to my family, before I- before they killed my father. They divided us, made us fight among ourselves – you cannot do the same. You cannot let them do this again!"

The silence that follows her outburst is choking, and it takes Willas a long moment to hold out a hand to her and coax her back into her seat.

"Sansa, my love, we will not fall apart. We fight like this even at the best of times. You need not worry."

She clutches his hand tight, so tight, and there's something behind her words, her anger, her fear, something that he fully intends uncovering as soon as Margaery leaves.

"You must go to Storm's End, brother," Margaery says. "If nothing else, your little wife will be far away from her ghosts there – no Stark has been in the Stormlands in almost twenty years, after all."

* * *

Garlan and Leonette arrive the following morning, and Willas is sure to be the first one to the courtyard to greet them.

"Sansa would have come, but she's taken ill," he explains, embracing Garlan fiercely before turning to Leonette and kissing her on either cheek. "She'll be with us for lunch, gods willing, but until then I'm afraid you'll have to make do with my miserable company."

"Ah, I'm sure we'll manage," Garlan laughs, clapping him on the shoulder after retrieving Willas' cane from where he dropped it to greet them. "Provided you don't hide the second-prettiest Lady Tyrell away in your rooms for the next few days, I won't cause a fuss."

"I can't imagine why I'd hide Leonette away, can you, my lady?" Willas teases, offering Leonette his arm with a grin. "Come, come – I'm sure Father will send for us soon enough. Let us take advantage of the respite my having told him that you are not due for another four hours."

* * *

While Garlan and Leonette are settling into their rooms, Willas slips next door to check on Sansa. She took to bed early the previous evening with a chill, and when he sits beside her on the bed and touches his fingers to her forehead he's dismayed to note that it's turned into a full-blown fever.

"How do you feel?" he asks softly, wondering how it is that a woman so tall as Sansa can seem so tiny, bundled up under the blankets and curled in on herself like that.

"Cold," she whimpers miserably, her face pale and flushed all at once. "So cold."

"Oh, sweet girl," he sighs, stroking her hair. "I sent for a maester – not that Qyburn, don't worry – and he should be here soon. Is there anything you need?"

She just looks at him with those huge, sad eyes, and he sighs in understanding before reaching down to pull off his boots.

"Just for a few minutes, mind," he says, lifting the covers and slipping in beside her. She wraps herself around him immediately, and she's like a brazier, the heat rolling off her in waves. "Garlan will be wondering where I've scurried off to."

"Stay," she whispers, pressing her face into his throat. "I hate being alone here. Please stay."

He considers it, running his fingers through her tangled hair. He can't stay for long, but perhaps a little while won't hurt.

"Will you tell me what you meant yesterday?" he says cautiously. "About the Lannisters turning your family against one another. I did not understand."

It's a hallmark of just how ill she is that she does not even cringe at the mention of the Lannisters, those who she hates more than any others in all the world.

"When I came south," she says, her voice slightly hoarse and slightly slurred all at once. "When I came south, I thought I loved Joffrey, and the Queen… Father wanted to send Arya and I away before he named Joffrey the Kingslayer's son in front of court, but I went to the Queen. I didn't want to leave, I didn't understand…"

He's horrified to feel tears, hotter even than her skin as they trickle from her cheeks onto his neck, and tilts her face up to his with gentle fingers.

"Sweet girl, you didn't understand," he says softly. "You cannot blame yourself for being seduced by the Lannisters."

"It's my fault Father died," she says sleepily, her brow furrowed and her lips pursed. "My fault…"

She snores against his neck as she drifts into a fitful slumber, and he carefully disentangles himself without waking her – she barely slept last night, after all, and the maesters always say that sleep is the great healer. Or perhaps it's time. He can never quite remember.

He's unsurprised to find that Garlan and Leonette have let themselves into his and Sansa's solar, Leonette perched on a chair by the fireplace and Garlan sprawled carelessly on the sofa under the higher of their two windows.

"Your rooms are much nicer than ours," Garlan comments idly, eyes closed and fingers trailing on the ground. "Bigger, too."

"I apologise for that," Willas says, easing himself down into the chair opposite Leonette. "I suppose that fat head of yours does need quite some room."

"Ha ha," Garlan says, sitting up and leaning forward, elbows on knees. "I always forget what a wit you are, Willas. Thank you for reminding me, brother."

"It is my pleasure," Willas assures him mockingly, stretching out his leg and grimacing as it twinges. He dares not return to Qyburn, and he has yet to find a maester who understands what he needs with regards his knee. He just hopes that this man coming this afternoon knows his arts well enough to improve Sansa's condition. "Tell me, brother, has Father been made aware of your presence just yet? You've been here perhaps half an hour by now, after all-"

"It was your father that told us to come here," Leonette says with a frown. "I think he intends to have something of a family meeting."

Willas jerks upright, anger already starting to simmer in his gut.

"My wife is very ill, so ill she cannot leave our bed, and he thinks that here, just on the other side of a door from her, is the ideal spot for us to hold a meeting?"

Garlan shrugs and is just in the act of rising when the door leading into the corridor is flung open to reveal not only Father and Grandmother, but also Margaery, that Trant bastard on her heels, both Redwyne twins and Igon Vyrwel, the captain of the guard at Highgarden, who had come to the capital as the head of Father's personal guard.

"This is highly inappropriate," Willas says sharply. He glowers at Father for just a moment before turning his anger on Meryn Trant. "I have forbidden you from entering these rooms once already. I did not think I would need to do so a second time."

"The High Septon says that the Queen-"

"Do you see anyone here with whom she is likely to fornicate?" Willas snaps, heaving himself to his feet and ignoring the stab of pain in his knee. "Out, I say – if my sister visits my wife and I again, you will remain at the door and come no further. The corridor is quite close enough to guard her."

Trant scowls, but he bows low to Margaery and takes his leave, slamming the door in his wake. Willas ignores the surprised looks his family throws him and slumps back down into the chair, leaning his forehead on his fist and closing his eyes.

"If this is to make some genius plan, then you are a fool to come here," he says. "The Lannisters mistrust Sansa and I even more than they mistrust you, because she has the best claim to Winterfell – the only legitimate claim to Winterfell, even, in the realm. We're probably watched even more closely than Margaery."

"You will leave for Storm's End tomorrow morning," Father says, ignoring Willas' caution and sitting at the little dining table by the wall. Grandmother looks hard at Leonette until she gives up her seat, and Margaery smiles and tilts her head until Garlan moves over enough to allow her to sit down.

"Not unless Sansa makes a miraculous recovery," Willas bites back. "You do realise that she's abed with a fever, Father? Unable to rise for the aches and pains?"

Father waves a careless hand.

"It's of your little wife that we wish to speak of," Grandmother interjects, and Willas tenses. For one, he hates when anyone else refers to Sansa as his "little" wife. He might call her that, but he means it affectionately, and she rolls her eyes when he does. For another, he hates when his grandmother talks about Sansa at all, always speaking of her as if she's a brood mare who's not worth the money paid for her. "We have considered an undesirable turn of events, and she may be the solution to it."

Willas is on his feet in an instant, oblivious for once to the sharp jolt of pain that shoots up his thigh and down his shin from his knee, and everyone else but Grandmother rise with him. He takes a moment to relish the fact that none but Garlan stand taller than him, and Garlan only by a hair, before rounding on Grandmother.

"Whatever schemes and plots you've cooked up involving my wife, they end now," he says coldly. "I will not have Sansa used in your game, Grandmother. You would have used her already had I not refused to allow you to bring her back to the capital with you as soon as we were wed-"

"That is the issue," Grandmother interrupts. "Sit down, boy."

Rather than taking the wind from his sails, as she doubtless hoped it would, her lazy dismissal only riles Willas further.

"You will tell me what plan you have created that involves my wife. Then you will leave, all of you – you and Leonette are welcome to stay, of course, Garlan, but the rest of you will leave."

There follows a startled silence, and Willas realises not for the first time just how little any of his immediate family save his mother actually know him. Even Garlan, his favourite brother, his best friend besides Baelor and Alric, has never seen him lose his temper this way. In fact, he is quite sure that none save the Old Man, Baelor and Aldwin have ever seen him lose his temper at all, beyond a sharp word here and there and perhaps a curse if his temper is running short because of his leg.

Margaery seems the most surprised of all, her mouth hanging open in a most undignified manner, and he would laugh if he weren't so angry at their presumption. How dare they think that they may use Sansa, his Sansa, in their schemes?

"She has not yet borne you an heir," Grandmother says, refusing to be cowed even though he can see the tension in her wrinkled hands, in the tight lines around her mouth. "She is young, and she is already very beautiful. There is every chance that Aegon Targaryen will not want Margaery as his Queen." Her eyes are icy cold as she continues. "If the Dragon wants to make a queen of a Tully-looking Stark, you will not stand in his way."

That does take the wind out of Willas' sails. The thought of setting Sansa aside, of allowing any other man to touch her, to name her his, is enough to turn his stomach. Sansa is his, only his, and he will kill any man who tries to tell him otherwise.

"No."

They all turn, startled at the sight of Sansa bundled up in not only her own robe but also Willas', flushed and shivering, her hair pulled into a hasty braid over her shoulder. Even ill and frail as she so obviously is, her teeth chattering even as sweat beads on her face, there is steel in her eyes that makes Willas proud to call her his wife.

"I will not be used again," she says, her voice hoarse. "Especially not by you, Lady Olenna. If Aegon Targaryen wants my alliance as Lady of House Stark and rightful Lady of Winterfell and the North, it is his, but I have a husband already, and I will not set him aside to take another."

"Listen here, girl," Father begins roughly, rounding on Sansa. "Your claims to Winterfell and the North died when the King named Roose Bolton Warden of the North and gave him Winterfell. As anything but a figurehead, you have as little worth as any tavern wench-"

Willas sees red, and he completely forgets to worry about the strain on his leg as he spins and slams his fist into his father's face with as much force as he can muster, as often as he can before Garlan leaps for him. It takes Garlan, Horace and Igon all together to hold him back as he struggles to hit Father again, aching to break the fat fool's jaw, his nose, to hurt him as thoroughly as he has hurt Sansa, because Willas will never see Sansa hurt again, never, not if he can help it-

"Willas," Sansa says, ducking around his arms on unsteady feet and taking his face in her hands. Her skin is clammy, her eyes glassy but determined. "Willas, enough."

"What he said-"

"Enough," she says again, and Garlan barely lets go of him before he has to catch Sansa. Her knees buckle as he catches her up against his chest, her whole body trembling and shivering madly, but her eyes are still determined. His heart swells with love for her in that moment, and he almost forgets that his family are in the room with them. "I have been called worse."

He sags just slightly, winding his arms tighter around her and pressing a kiss to her crown as she presses her face into his chest.

"Sansa will remain my wife," he says firmly, amazed by how level his voice is considering just moments before he wanted nothing more than to break his father as thoroughly as possible. "Aegon Targaryen might be powerful, and he may even some day have my allegiance, but he will never have my wife. When Sansa is well enough, we will journey to Storm's End. We will go as heir to House Tyrell and Lady of House Stark, and bugger you all if you think you're setting terms to suit your ends. I'll suggest Margaery as a potential queen, but I don't blame him if he turns her down."

"How dare-"

"I dare because you have disrespected my wife at every turn," he cuts Father off, nodding his thanks to Garlan as he takes his cane from his brother. "I dare because you have never treated me as your heir until I recently became useful to you. I dare because you are a fool, Father, a fool who is likely to endanger everything House Tyrell and Highgarden are if left unfettered. Mayhaps Baelor had the right of it when he said the Reach would be better off if you suffered an unfortunate accident and Highgarden was mine."

The silence that greets this declaration is broken only by Sansa's unsteady breathing and the audible grinding of Father's teeth.

"Now leave," he orders flatly. "Leave, and I will send for you before Sansa and I depart."

Father is the last to leave, standing in the doorway for a long moment, staring at Willas warily as if he has never seen him before, and then he slams the door and is gone.

"I am sorry," Willas murmurs, stroking Sansa's hair and guiding her to sit in the chair he abandoned when his temper flared. "You should not have had to hear that."

Garlan shoves Willas squarely down into the other chair, which he dragged over closer to Sansa's, and sits down at his feet.

"Fucking idiot," he swears. "Stupid, arrogant, valiant idiot. What did you think you were doing, forgetting about your knee like that?"

Willas knocks aside Garlan's hands as his brother moves to pull off his boot.

"I am not an invalid, Garlan," he says firmly. "Now move, else I'll kick you – I still have one good leg, after all."

Leonette emerges from the bedchamber with a bundle of blankets in her arms and drapes them around Sansa, wrapping her up so that only her face is visible, her face and a flash of her glorious hair.

"You should not have struck your father," Sansa says, smiling wanly at Leonette before turning her attention back to Willas. "It was unnecessary, and foolish."

"I'm afraid I lost control of my temper," he admits, ducking his head and pressing his fingers into the back of his knee to try and root out the precise source of the ache. "It shan't happen again, I promise you."

Sansa curls up and is sleeping fitfully within moments, but Garlan and Leonette are standing over him, faces torn between fury and worry.

"You cannot expect him to stand for this, brother," Garlan frets – there really is no other word for it, not with him all but wringing his hands – and Leonette nods in agreement. "You and he have never been close-"

"Do you know what he said the day after I was crippled, Garlan? Do you? He said "Better for all of us if you caught some infection." How am I to treat him as you do when I know he would rather I had died?"

"He said that to you?"

"He stood in my room when he thought I was sleeping and said it," Willas says bitterly. "He was too much a craven to even say it to my face. He has never forgiven me for taking after Mother's side of the family, which is not something I can help."

He may have the same colouring as his brothers and sister, the chestnut-brown hair and the honey-brown eyes, but Willas' features are all Hightower, the strong jaw and the high, sharp cheekbones, handsome in a different way to Garlan, not beautiful like Loras and Margaery. He is more austere in some ways, warmer in others – there is nothing Redwyne in him at all, he is proud to say. Grandmother actively and vocally disapproves of his more subtle approach to politics, to his understanding that sometimes power is not everything, and perhaps because of her opinion he has never been good enough for his damnable father, and he knows it.

"Baelor was right," Sansa murmurs drowsily, cracking open one eye to smile blearily from her cocoon of wool. "Your father is a fat fool."


	10. Chapter 10

Sansa retires early in the evening after spending most of the day wrapped up in blankets beside a roaring fire despite the heat, but the maester, a fidgety little man with eyes that seem too big for his face, is confident that the tincture he left for her will break her fever within two days.

"Do you know," Garlan says lightly as Willas closes the door to the bedchamber as quietly as he can. "I don't think I've ever seen you this concerned about someone else's health since I had redspots."

"Oh, be quiet," Willas laughs, shaking his head. "I suppose I'd better go find Father, hadn't I?"

"He will expect an apology," Garlan agrees. "Although he was rather out of line, him and Grandmother both."

Willas scowls and tightens his grip on his cane.

"Grandmother and I will be having serious words," he promises. "She- I cannot even begin to understand how she thought Sansa and I might set aside our marriage."

"She knows full well that Aegon Targaryen will likely refuse Margaery as his queen," Garlan points out. "But she still wants to be able to influence him through his wife – doubtless she was sure that Sansa would be so grateful to her and Marg for getting her away from the Lannisters that she would do whatever was asked of her." He grins suddenly. "You're a bad influence on your lady wife, brother – I'll bet she was putty in Grandmother's hands before she was left alone with you."

"My bitterness towards House Tyrell does have a nasty habit of rubbing off on people," Willas agrees mildly, pausing in the corridor to exchange a word with the guard on his and Sansa's rooms before limping alongside Garlan as quickly as he can. His leg is aching something terrible, worse since his exertions earlier in the day, but he knows better than to let Garlan see his discomfort – Willas loves his brother, but the moment Garlan senses that Willas is in any sort of pain, he turns into a fussing nursemaid that would shame any matron. Willas sometimes thinks that Mother is the only person at Highgarden who understands how important his independence is to him, how much his pride suffers when someone tries to do something for him on account of his leg.

He is thankful that Father's rooms aren't far from his and Sansa's, even though in a strange way he wishes they were further away so he might put off doing this for a little while longer.

Grandmother is, of course, sitting in Father's solar – he has yet to move to the Tower of the Hand for whatever reason – with her feet propped up on a little stool, Margaery sitting across from her with Meryn Trant lounging idly against the wall behind her. Willas spares a moment to glare at the false knight – what sort of man strikes an innocent girl? – before turning to the table on the far side of the room.

Father's left eye is purple and red and black and almost swollen shut, and Willas feels guilty and smug in equal measure.

"I owe you an apology," he says, letting the guilt rise to the fore. "I should not have struck you earlier today, Father. Nor should I have spoken as I did. I- I am sorry."

"As well you should be," Grandmother grouses from her place by the fire, sniffing her disapproval. "After the way you spoke, an apology is only the start of it-"

"Mother," Father cuts her off, waving a dismissive hand that leaves Grandmother's mouth hanging open in shock. Willas is surprised, too – he cannot remember Father ever standing up to Grandmother. Ever. It simply doesn't happen. "Enough. I will speak with Willas alone."

Garlan raises his eyebrows, but he takes Leonette's hand and leads her out of the room with a grim smile at Willas. Margaery and Grandmother are slower to leave, fussing about their skirts and sewing baskets and any distraction they can lay hands on before finally they have no choice but to walk out.

"Father?" Willas prompts as soon as the door closes in their wake. "If I offended you more seriously than I imagined, I do apologise – my temper-"

"Your temper had nothing to do with it," Father says. "Sit. Would you care for a cup of wine?"

"I- No, no thank you," Willas says, utterly nonplussed. "Father-"

"You seem to be under the impression that I despise you," Father says, sipping his own wine and looking down at the papers on the desk before him. "No doubt your grandfather and uncle helped foster that misapprehension, but your mother has always been of the opinion that I did little to disillusion you of it."

Willas says nothing. He doesn't know what he's supposed to say.

"You are my son," Father says after a long pause. "Mayhaps it was wrong of me to send you to Oldtown when you were a child, but I never intended for you to stay so long – your grandfather wished to meet you, and then, when you were due to return home there was an outbreak of the sweating sickness and… By the time it was cleared, you were more settled in the High Tower than you had ever seemed in Highgarden, and you always seemed so happy there…"

"I would have been happy at Highgarden. It is my home, Father. It always has been."

Not entirely true – there have been times when Willas has considered the High Tower more his home than Highgarden, but that had more to do with how welcome he feels in the two than anything else, and telling Father that would improve neither of their moods.

"That's something, at least," Father sighs. "Your mother and your brothers missed you more than I did, I admit – we were on shaky ground with the King after laying siege to Storm's End during the rebellion, after all, and there was much political manoeuvring to be done to ensure that Highgarden would still be ours for you to inherit."

"I-"

"Loras is my favourite and always has been," Father says bluntly. "Garlan I find easiest to talk with, and Margaery is my only daughter. You are my heir, though, Willas. My eldest son. My firstborn. I fathered no children by any woman but your mother, of that I can assure you, and so you are undeniably my firstborn. We have never been close – there is too much of Baelor bloody Brightsmile in you for that, and too much Tyrell in me, I fear."

"I have only ever wanted- Father, I-" Willas, for the first time in a very long time, finds himself completely tongue-tied. He wishes desperately that Mother were here – she seems more capable of translating Father than anyone else, and surely Father can't actually mean what he's saying?

Father's hand is heavy on Willas' shoulder.

"You are my heir," he says again. "And, for her sins, Sansa Stark is your wife. I, too, spoke out of turn this afternoon. Bah, you've always been too intelligent for your own good – your grandmother worries that she won't be able to use you the way she uses me when you take my place."

"Mayhaps Grandmother will predecease you, Father."

Father snorts in an unseemly show of amusement.

"That old harridan will live forever," he says flatly, shaking his head. "We will put this afternoon aside – and yes, I am willing to do so rather than punishing you for striking your lord as is my right-"

The thought alone makes the blood drain from Willas' face. In the Reach, the punishment for striking your lord is to be flogged in the square of your nearest town by that lord's chosen guardsman, thanks to Randyll bloody Tarly and his fervent devotion to cold, hard justice.

"- and so I hope you will do the same. You are still going to Storm's End at your earliest possible convenience. As soon as your wife is fit to sit a horse-"

"I'm bringing Garlan and Leonette," he blurts out abruptly, startling Father. "If- The Faith has yet to name a champion to stand against this Robert Strong in Cersei Lannister's trial. I worry that they may choose Garlan because I intervened on Margaery's behalf and they can't name me, for obvious reasons."

Father sits back sharply, paling at the thought. Willas shared everything Baelor told him about this Qyburn, including the suspicions that could be taken from the report, and while Father had dismissed the notion of the Mountain's headless corpse wearing Kingsguard white, the idea had planted a seed of queasy fear in the back of his mind.

"And Garlan's presence will be a greater recommendation of House Tyrell's fealty," Willas adds hopefully. "We-"

"Very well," Father says, rising suddenly. "Sansa Stark will remain your wife, and you will bring her and your brother with you when you go to treat with the Mummer's Dragon."

"You do not believe that he can truly be Aegon Targaryen, Father?"

Father's mouth twists in disgust.

"Of the Targaryens, Willas, I will believe anything at all."

* * *

It is not until later, while climbing into bed beside Sansa, that Willas realises he has been manipulated into doing precisely what his father and grandmother want once more.

Then again, considering the last decision they made for him was to marry him to Sansa, mayhaps they do occasionally know best.

"What did your father say?" she asks, rolling over into his arms and pressing her face into his throat. She's still far too warm, but she's not giving off those alarming waves of heat anymore, which is a relief.

"He apologised, and made some attempt at explaining why precisely I was never brought home from Oldtown," he tells her, pressing a kiss to the tangle of hair at her crown. "And then, when Grandmother came back in, he didn't open his mouth while she and I fought over her treatment of you."

"You didn't have to do that," she murmurs, matching his kiss with a brush of her fever-dry lips against his pulse. "But thank you."

"Bugger her if she thinks she can take you away from me," he grumbles, wrapping her tighter in his arms and pulling her closer, until she's entirely on top of him. "The gods were good enough to give you to me, and my grandmother can holiday in each of the seven hells if she thinks to stand between us."

* * *

Sansa is drastically better the next morning, but still weak – the maester visits again and prescribes four days of bedrest and plenty of hearty food to build her strength back up.

"The King was stricken with the same illness just last week," the little man confides as he packs up his bottles and vials. "Five days and he was right as rain – it is a mercy that Lady Tyrell is not with child, else I fear her situation may have been considerably worse."

"Excuse me?"

"Such fevers, if a breeding woman contracts them… They thin the blood, my lord, so much so that miscarriage is almost inevitable, and that can often have a dire effect on a lady's health, especially one so young as Lady Tyrell- but pardon me, my lord. I speak out of turn."

He bows and excuses himself, and Willas lowers himself into the nearest chair with a heavy sigh.

He and Sansa agreed to wait before even considering having a child – Sansa is just gone three-and-ten, is still grieving for her family, and much as they would like to deny it, they are still not secure enough in their marriage to be comfortable with the idea of bringing a child into it – but the strange looks and unwelcome opinions offered on the subject are wearisome. On the one hand is Grandmother, constantly badgering them for an heir, and on the other is the likes of the maester, quietly disapproving of a man Willas' age having a wife Sansa's, and suggesting without saying a word that they mayhaps put off having children for the foreseeable future.

He knows that it bothers Sansa even more than it does him – she, after all, was raised to think that her only true duty in life was to bear her husband's children. To him, it's more important that she finds some measure of genuine happiness again, something more than the safety and peace he has offered her thus far, but he knows that that niggling doubt is always present in the back of her mind.

He sighs again and leans his head into his hands, wondering when things will start to make sense again. He loves Sansa – he's not afraid to admit it – but having her in his life makes things incredibly complicated.

* * *

Garlan, of course, is ecstatic at the idea of joining them at Storm's End.

"A fine adventure!" he laughs, clapping Willas on the shoulder when he raises the subject over dinner the following evening. Sansa is sitting with Leonette on the other side of the table, poking half-heartedly at a bowl of what Aldwin and Marian reported as being "hearty broth, milord, so says that fat old bitch of a cook, but we had a good poke at it and it don't seem to hearty to us, milady" when they brought it up from the kitchens. She smiles faintly at Garlan's enthusiasm before catching Leonette's wry gaze and having to stifle a giggle.

"Mayhaps I should just stuff you in a sack and tie you to Florian's saddle so you can't make a fool of yourself," Willas suggests dryly, leaning back in his chair and absentmindedly swirling his cup of wine. "Behave like this with the Mummer's Dragon and he'll have us all on the cookfire."

"Oh, he's young enough that he'll doubtless be bored of stuffy old farts kissing his boots. Mayhaps he'll play a game or two of cyvasse – you can embarrass him into doing whatever we want that way. You're ruthless."

* * *

Sansa's hair is still the most beautiful thing in Willas' world save perhaps her smile or her eyes, and so it is with the greatest of pleasure that he shifts all his weight onto his right leg and stands behind her to help her brush it out for bed that night.

"I might be a liability," she says suddenly. "With Prince Aegon. I- His father and my aunt-"

"You will be at Storm's End as the future Lady of Highgarden," Willas murmurs, humming in disappointment when her hair starts to stand up of its own accord. She always makes him stop when it does that. "And, once we can assure ourselves of his relative sanity – always remembering that he is, after all, a Targaryen – we may or may not reveal that you are a Stark of Winterfell by birth. I won't allow any harm to come to you, little wolf," he promises, setting down the hairbrush – a pretty thing back with silver and mother-of-pearl, a gift from Mother so Sansa wouldn't have to bring her good heavy silver-backed brush and mirror with her to the city – and gently pulls Sansa back against his chest, his arms around her shoulders. She lifts her hands and holds tight to his wrists, closing her eyes and sinking into his embrace, and he finds himself oddly proud of how safe she feels with him.

"Do you swear it?"

"Sansa, my love, I shouted at Olenna Redwyne for you – Aegon Targaryen is nothing after my grandmother."

* * *

The third day of Sansa's convalescence is spent sitting in the window seat of their solar with her feet tucked under her and her sewing in her lap. Marian and Leonette volunteer to keep her company, and even Margaery offers – an offer that is quickly refused, of course, because with Margaery comes Meryn bloody Trant – but it is with Marian tucking a quilt around Sansa's shoulders and Leonette chatting over the lip of her teacup that Willas and Garlan leave the ladies for a day spent riding out with Father.

"You tell him that, with Margaery in the capital, we cannot move openly against the Lannisters just yet. We need to be sure that we haven't another Renly-"

"If we declare for Aegon Targaryen, Father, he will have Sunspear, Highgarden and Storm's End all in the palm of his hand. Doubtless Dragonstone would be easily taken again now that it's been taken once, which would leave a good lump of the realm under his control," Willas notes. "The North is in shambles, the Vale is maintaining a very careful silence, and nobody seems to know who precisely is in control of the Riverlands."

"Lysa Arryn is dead," Father says, seeming surprised by the words coming from his mouth. "She married Petyr Baelish recently, apparently – he's acting as Lord Protector for her son."

Willas grimaces, wondering if this is one more revelation that will break something else in Sansa – he knows that she met her aunt only once and barely remembers the woman, if at all, but she was still kin, still family, and Sansa has precious little of that left.

"Littlefinger," is Garlan's less-than-pleased response. "That bastard. I trust him even less than the eunuch-"

"Mind your tongue," Willas says sharply. "The Spider's web has no end."

"Bugger him," Garlan huffs, but he says no more on the subject of Varys the Eunuch, the only man Willas is certain would smile as his paid assassin slipped a knife between your ribs. "Willas has the right of it though, Father – if we could somehow get Margaery out of the city without the Lannisters realising…"

"You did it for Sansa," Willas points out. "And at the time, she was just as valuable as Margaery is now – although I do not think we would need to resort to subterfuge to get my sister to Highgarden."

"What do you mean?" Father asks, nonplussed. "She's watched like a hawk-"

"It would be a simple matter of my going to the High Septon and offering to take Margaery into my custody – we would of course have to remove ourselves from the den of sin and iniquity that is King's Landing, of course, and I might have to promise to take her to Oldtown for a time, but it should work well enough. Still, I think the Red Keep is the safest place for Margaery for the moment. Better her here where she can help influence King Tommen than at Highgarden where she can do little more than fume-"

"What of Storm's End?" Father suggests, and he seems surprised when Willas and Garlan exchange a look of astonished amusement before laughing so hard Garlan has to cling to Florian's neck to stop from falling and Willas only stays upright thanks to his extra-secure saddle.

"Father, please, leave Storm's End to Garlan and I," Willas says, wiping away an errant tear of mirth. "Given how precarious our position will inevitably be with this scion of House Targaryen, I imagine Margaery's particular brand of subtlety may work to our disadvantage."

"How do you intend convincing him of our loyalty, then?"

Garlan grins, fingers drumming on the hilt of his sword as they do when he's anxious about something, and Willas commends him silently for controlling himself so well in front of Father.

"Willas will take him apart on the cyvasse board until Aegon gives in and does as we tell him," he says with a raised eyebrow. "There'll be no need to prove our loyalty if the king is eating out of my brother's hand, Father."

Father is less amused by their japery than they are, but it is better than telling him their actual plans, which involve giving up rather more than Father would stand for, Willas knows.

Aegon Targaryen is Elia Martell's son, after all, and there is a long-standing enmity between Houses Tyrell and Martell that Willas and Oberyn, Seven bless his marvellously wicked soul, were the exception to.

The Lord of Highgarden has always been the Warden of the Reach. If allowing the Prince (or Princess) of Dorne to assume the title of Warden of the South is what it will take to prove that the Tyrells are fully in support of their "rightful" King (as they were with Renly, against Willas' advice, as they were with Joffrey and now are with Tommen, the poor – literal – bastard), then that is what the Tyrells will do.

But Father cannot be told that, and so Willas and Garlan will quietly assume plenipotentiary status without actually clarifying with Father and do whatever it takes to keep the Tyrells in Highgarden.

* * *

He's barely in the bedchamber with the intention of bathing before dinner but he's hit by the not-rosemary scent of Sansa's hair and skin. She's bathing behind a screen of pale blue silk set up in the corner of the room, and he's settling into the deep copper tub behind her before he even remembers crossing the room.

"Good evening, my lord," she says archly, not objecting when he pulls her back into his lap and drops his mouth to her shoulder. "How was your day?"

"Reasonably pleasant," he tells her, his voice muffled against the sweep of her collarbone. "And yours, my lady?"

"The same," she sighs, letting her head fall back over his shoulder. "I feel much better."

He wraps his arms tight around her and nuzzles into her neck for a long, long moment, luxuriating in the feel of her skin against his and resolutely ignoring his arousal until she is completely limp against his chest, and even then all he does is lament that he isn't alone to deal with it.

"We will be leaving in a few days," he murmurs into her neck.

"Have you ever been to Storm's End?" she asks, reaching up one hand to scratch at his scalp until he purrs – his scalp, they've found, is incredibly sensitive. Her hair is twisted up into a towering pile of copper on top of her head, pins glittering everywhere to hold it in place, and he wishes it were loose so he might bury his face in the silk of it. "I have not."

He has been to Storm's End, of course, several times, and he has always found it…

"It's very big," he says honestly. "There is a reasonable sized market within the walls, but the town is perhaps half a mile away. The castle itself, though… I honestly cannot describe it much beyond big, Sansa. Huge walls of yellow sandstone, Baratheon stags bloody everywhere – although I imagine the whole place will be hung with three-headed dragons, now."

"I've never seen a Targaryen banner," she admits, her voice hushed.

"You've seen the sigil?"

"Of course I have! I did study with Maester Luwin, you know-"

"I know, little wolf, I know," he laughs, lifting his head to look into her eyes. "The banners… I remember visiting the capital with Grandfather and Baelor when I was quite young, before the rebellion. Mad Aerys was still on the throne, the dragon skulls still decorated the throne room… The entire city was hung in scarlet dragons. I was terrified of them – all I was used to was Tyrell roses and the High Tower and the other portsmen's sigils, none of which are near so threatening as a great big scarlet dragon with three heads roaring everywhere all over the city. Half the furniture in the Keep was destroyed when Robert took the throne, because Aerys was obsessed with dragons – he had them carved into everything. Most of the decorative stonework was done during his reign, all that awful nonsense around the entrance and the like."

"Awful nonsense" of three-headed dragons feasting on direwolves and lions and trout, swallowing the sun and stamping down roses, burning falcons from the sky and tearing krakens from the sea. Willas always wondered why Robert Baratheon didn't have the damn thing done away with, monstrosity as it is.

"Enough about dragons," she whispers, twisting a little further to kiss behind his ear, her hand sneaking down between her legs for his pleasure rather than her own. "I see our agreement is weighing heavy on you, husband," she teases, fingers closing around him before he can raise an objection. "It is a wife's duty to attend to her husband's needs."

Willas usually argues when Sansa brings up her duty as his wife – she has some funny notions that he generally goes out of his way to disabuse – but he finds himself entirely incapable of speech just now.

* * *

He returns from a meeting with Father and several of the Tyrell bannermen who have come to the city the following afternoon to find the hulking mass of this Robert Strong standing guard at the door of his and Sansa's rooms, and immediately feels sick.

"He never leaves Cersei Lannister's side," Garlan murmurs, his brow creasing into a deep frown. "You don't think-"

"I do," Willas says grimly, marching as effectively as he can past the silent knight and throwing open the door.

Sansa is all but cowering in the window seat, her back flush against the diamond-paned glass, and Cersei Lannister is sitting nearby, leaning forward in her chair, the light glinting on her over-exposed scalp.

"Your Grace," Willas says, crossing the room with only the smallest, most perfunctory of bows and sitting beside Sansa. "To what do my lady and I owe the pleasure?"

Cersei's smile poorly hides the malicious intent she clearly had in mind, and she rises carefully, watching him with hard eyes.

"It has been long since last I saw Sansa," she says, her voice warmer by far than those bitter eyes. "I wished to enquire after her health – is it not natural that I would be concerned, Lord Willas? She was to be my daughter before your sweet sister usurped her place."

"Natural," he agrees. "And you, Your Grace? I hope that you are in good health after your… ordeal?"

Her jaw tightens visibly at the reminder of her shame, but she maintains that smile-that-is-not-a-smile.

"Exceptional health, my lord," she assures him, sickly sweet, before turning to Garlan. "I have heard your name mentioned as the Faith's champion in my trial, ser – will you raise arms?"

"Alas, Your Grace, I cannot," Garlan says, bowing his head as though it truly is a pity. "Lamentably, I must be gone from the city within the next few days – my lady and I must return to Brightwater, to stamp down the last of the Florent loyalists. There are unfortunately many."

A blatant lie, but one Cersei is likely to believe.

"They must be eradicated," she says with a surprising fervour. "Very well, my lord, Ser Garlan – Sansa." She spares an especially cutting smile for Sansa before sweeping for the door.

It clicks shut in her wake, and Sansa clambers over into Willas' arms the moment it does.

"She wanted- She tried to make me-"

"Forget her," Willas says firmly. "She is ruined, Sansa – there is nothing she can do to you. Remember that. She is powerless now, sweetling."

"She wanted me to find out your plans," she whispers into his jaw. "She- she thinks that you're plotting to kill Tommen and usurp the throne through Margaery. Willas-"

"I will do everything in my power to save Tommen, Sansa, I promise you that," he says, nodding over her head to Garlan as he takes his leave. "You know me, little wolf – I'd never allow a child to come to harm, especially not one so sweet as Tommen."

"I know, but the Queen – the Dowager Queen, I mean, Willas, she won't believe that, she won't, I know her-"

"Hush now," he murmurs, stroking her hair until the trembling subsides. "You're still not well, sweetling – come, back to bed with you and rest some more."

"Oh, but I don't want to go back to bed," she grumbles, winding her arms tighter around his shoulders. "Sit with me a while? Please?"

He sighs and pulls her closer, settling her better across his thighs so she can nuzzle against his throat as she likes.

"A little while," he concedes, pressing a kiss to her hair and drowning in the not-rosemary scent of her. "Just a little while."


	11. Chapter 11

Willas blinks awake in slow evening light, the soft rasp of Sansa's snoring loud in his ears.

"Oh dear," he sighs, pulling her higher in his lap so he can hold her closer to him. "It seems we fell asleep, little wolf."

She snores on oblivious, but her fingers tighten in his tunic and she presses her face tighter against his throat. He couldn't explain why if someone asked him right now, but in that moment he's so irrepressibly fond of her that it's all he can do to hold her tighter and smile like a fool.

"Too tight," she murmurs, lifting her head from his chest to blink bleary eyes up at him. "How long…?"

"I don't rightly know," he admits with a smile. "But mayhaps you should actually go to bed if you're this tired?"

"No," she says firmly, pouting just enough to tempt him into kissing her. She responds eagerly, shifting in his grip until she's kneeling over his lap, her hands twisted through his hair and her body rocking into his. "I'm not going to bed."

He laughs at her then, unable to help himself, and pulls her down so he can bury his face in her hair and lose himself in the smell of her.

"Are you well enough to eat dinner with Garlan and Leonette?" he asks, nuzzling into her neck, tasting her skin until she whimpers. "We must discuss travel arrangements-"

"Later," she sighs, letting her head fall back to expose her throat to him. "Later."

* * *

Sansa is well enough to dine with Garlan and Leonette, it turns out, although she makes sure to pull her braid over her left shoulder to hide a very interesting mark below her ear.

"It shouldn't take more than a fortnight to reach Storm's End," Garlan says brightly through a mouthful of raspberry tart. "We shan't have a large baggage train or escort, so-"

"We'll have more than just you and Loras and I," Willas points out, swallowing a bite of lemon cake and shaking his head. "No, best we allocate mayhaps three weeks-"

"It can't take that long!" Garlan insists, tossing another tiny sweet into his mouth and frowning. "It wouldn't take that long to get to Casterly Rock, or Winterfell, or Oldtown!"

"Through disputed territory, it may," Willas argues, leaning over to poke at the fire. There has been the most abominable chill in the air in recent days – winter has truly come, and hearing Garlan repeat the Stark words in something approaching levity had brought tears to Sansa's eyes – and the fire is dwindling enough to set Sansa and Leonette both shivering. "We cannot rule out the possibility of being taken prisoner if we show our colours, brother."

"We could hoist a peace banner as soon as we come close to those lands Prince Aegon has laid claim to," Sansa points out, huddling closer under his arm and looking up at him through her eyelashes. "I remember Father telling us tales of the Rebellion – Rhaegar Targaryen raised a peace banner to negotiate with King Robert, and even though Robert wanted to kill Rhaegar for taking my aunt, he honoured the peace banner. None would dare dishonour it, surely?"

"What a delightfully simple solution," Leonette says approvingly, smiling a strange, secret smile at Sansa. "And of course, my lords, you were both about to suggest it?"

Willas smiles down at Sansa, delighted to see the flush of pride – a delicate rosy pink in the apples of her cheeks – that has been absent since they came to King's Landing. She has taken so little enjoyment in life since their arrival, between her fears and her sickness, and to see even this is enough to make his heart swell in his chest.

"Very well then," he says, stroking a stray curl back from her face as if Garlan and Leonette are no longer in the room, "we shall organise a peace banner and keep it aloft as soon as we come within a hundred leagues of Storm's End, yes?"

Garlan very pointedly clears his throat, and it is with a raised eyebrow that he agrees and he and Leonette take their leave.

"You know," Willas says as the door clicks shut behind his brother and goodsister, "you are both very intelligent and marvellously distracting, little wolf."

He is more than willing to show Sansa just how distracting he can be, and she is very receptive to his display.

* * *

Word spreads through the Red Keep that the eldest two Tyrells and their pretty wives will soon be leaving the capital, and they are abruptly accosted by a flood of naysayers shaming them for not remaining until after Cersei Lannister's trial.

Willas is more than willing to allow Garlan to deal with their accusers in his own inimitable style, and so he and Sansa are left alone, for the most part, to their preparations.

Preparations grind to a halt, however, when Willas arrives in their bedchamber after hunting down Father for some minor thing or other to find Sansa looking uncertainly down at a cup of vile smelling tea.

"Tansy," he says faintly, feeling sick at the very thought. Could she possibly be with child? And if she was, could she possibly be considering casting the babe out? The idea of her not wanting their child-

"Sansa, sweetling, are you- have we- I-"

She shakes her head, setting aside the cup and coming towards him.

"Your grandmother came to visit me," she explains, sliding her arms around him and resting her ear over his heart. "She said that it would be better that I was not with child when we reached Storm's End, and that I had better be absolutely certain that I was not."

"You're not, though?"

She tilts her head up to look at him, and she is not quite smiling.

"We have lain together four times," she says, "and not in several moons. No, my lord, I am not with child."

"Oh." He is surprised and annoyed to find himself oddly disappointed. Boys with your eyes and girls with your hair, he remembers thinking on a sunny morning in Highgarden, and the rush of longing he feels for those imaginary children sickens him – Sansa is still grieving her family, is still so fragile, so young, and they have more than enough time to allow her to heal before they even consider having children.

That sure knowledge does not make him wish for children any less, though, and he is ashamed of himself for his lack of control.

"Oh," he says again. "That's – good, I suppose?"

She watches him carefully for a long moment before pressing her face back against his chest.

"I suppose," she says, neither agreeing nor disagreeing, and he wishes he'd delayed with Garlan as he'd intended rather than catching her with the damned tea.

* * *

Dinner that night is a quiet affair – Garlan and Leonette had a blazing row and are not talking, Grandmother and Margaery quarrelled and are speaking only to snipe at one another, and Father is sick and tired of the lot of them.

Willas is not sure how to go about fixing his mistake with Sansa that afternoon, and so he is on tenterhooks with her. He hates it, but he can't decide whether or not he should apologise – on the one hand, he feels as if he intruded on something private, but on the other, he hates himself for feeling guilty for wanting children with Sansa. He loves her, truly he does, and even though they have decided not to have children yet, both of them want children. It is not just duty for them – Willas practically aches with the desire to hold his own child in his arms, to teach his sons and daughters to walk and talk and ride and read.

He does not know what to do, and so what little conversation passes between him and Sansa is stilted, because she seems as unsure as he is himself.

She is unsure, that is, until he slides into bed and finds her lovely, delightfully naked body pressed against his side.

"I know that you want children," she says, ghosting uncertain, feathery kisses over his neck – she is still shy of initiating contact, still waits for him to make the first move more often than not – and reaching up to scratch at his scalp with practised fingers. "But I thought you wanted to wait?"

He stumbles over his words, choking off into a throaty purr, before coming back to himself enough to speak coherently.

"I do," he assures her, somehow pulling her up to sit across him, so he can look her in the eye. "I do, love, I do want to wait, but the tea- I'm sorry, Sansa, I'm sorry, but-"

"What have you to be sorry for?" she asks, and somehow, he feels abruptly drunk – on what he doesn't know. Possibly the relief of having not hurt Sansa, possibly the sheer, dizzying love he feels for her, possibly on Sansa herself, so beautiful he thinks he might die if he doesn't touch her more.

She gasps when he twists a hand into her hair and pulls her mouth to his, kissing her harder than ever he has before, rolling her onto her back and looming over her, holding himself up on his forearms so he can lick deeper into her mouth, suck harder on her lip, roll his hips into hers until she whimpers. Her hands are hot on his skin, clutching at his shoulders, fingers digging into the back of his neck, her body twisting underneath him as she surges up to meet him, to equal him.

His mouth is on her neck, a mark left by his teeth livid against her pale skin, by the time he can function enough to form words.

"Someday," he gasps, "someday we will fill Highgarden with our children," he promises, "and they will all be as beautiful and kind and lovely as you, little wolf, just as lovely-"

Her skin is soft and warm against his, and she tastes of salt and perhaps milk on his tongue as he kisses and licks his way down her, tugging the covers with him as he edges further down the bed, leaving her exposed to his gaze.

"So beautiful," he whispers into the dip under her hipbone. "Gods, Sansa, you're so beautiful, so perfect, my Sansa, my beautiful girl."

"What will we name them?" she asks dreamily. "What will we name our children, Willas?"

He fights for a moment to remember all the names of her fallen.

"Brandon and Eddard and Rickon and Arya and Catelyn and Robb," he announces triumphantly, punctuating each name with a kiss to her thigh, a bruising kiss that leaves her panting and gasping.

She shifts restlessly, pulling at his hair when he puts his mouth back against her body once more, when he nuzzles into the curls of auburn hair covering her mound, darker than the hair on her head and coarser, when he nudges her thighs further open and settles himself more comfortably between her legs.

"Oh, Willas, oh, oh please," she gasps, lifting her hips when he licks right up along her sex, revelling in the taste of her, in the sight of her losing control. There's something intoxicating in the act of making Sansa fall apart, he's found, in breaking away the carefully cultivated veneer of decorum she wears like armour, in revealing the true Sansa.

She shudders and says "Six children won't fill Highgarden."

She tastes even sweeter than he remembers – it's been weeks since last he did this for her, since they actually did anything more than just kiss, and it's maddening to be here now with her shattering and keening and calling his name with just the touch of his tongue and lips and the scrape of his teeth.

"Naerys, then," he groans, "and Allyn and Meredith and Samara and Ellyse."

She comes with his tongue inside her, his nose pressing against her nub, and the drunk feeling of earlier returns tenfold as he pulls himself up to lie alongside her, when he sees the pattern of bruises and bites marring the inside of her thighs, the swell of her breasts, the curve of her belly. Did I do that?

"Onto your side, little wolf," he urges, cupping a hand around her hip and pulling her tight against him and kissing her again, letting her taste herself on his lips. She jerks back when he slides his hand down her leg to catch her behind the knee and hitch her leg high over his hip, her eyes wide and dark and yes, she is his just as he is hers and Aegon bloody Targaryen can go to hell if he thinks he's getting his hands on Sansa, the whole world can go to hell if they think they're getting their hands on her.

"Can we- like this?" she asks breathlessly, pressing impossibly closer, shifting higher against him and tightening her grip on his hair. "Can we lie together like this?"

He returns his mouth to her neck, her shoulder, and she cries out – one of those delicious little chirps, so soft, so sweet – as he pushes into her with a moan.

"That's it sweet girl," he croons when her hips begin to move with his, when she curls her leg tighter over his waist, when she digs her fingers into his shoulder blade with a moan that sets the hair on the back of his neck on end and drives him faster, a moan that lingers and strips away all of his caution and carefulness and eggs him on until he's gasping for breath and his leg is going to be aching tomorrow but he doesn't care, because Sansa's shouting his name, shrieking and crying out so beautifully that his head is spinning.

"Touch yourself, Sansa," he orders mindlessly, sucking on her collarbone until she moans, and the hand curled around his shoulder blade trails over his chest on its way south. "That's it, the way I touch you, that's it Sansa, come for me sweet girl, come for me."

She wails when his mouth reaches the hollow at the base of her throat, her fingers circling and pressing against her flesh and slipping against his cock as he moves in and out of her and it's unbearable, he can't hold on much longer-

"Come for me, little wolf," he moans, nipping greedily at her throat. "Howl for me, Sansa," he begs, feeling the shudders that are racing up and down his spine, through every muscle in his body, as they threaten to break him to nothing.

She does both, shaking to her peak as she cries out, sharp and long and possibly the loveliest thing he's ever heard, and while that shatters his control it's the way she tightens and flutters around him that near pushes him over the edge, and he moans her name into the skin behind her ear as he comes, only a mental whisper of not yet prompting him to pull away from her, to spill on her belly and not in the agonizingly hot wet of her cunt.

It's not until he comes back to himself that he realises how tightly twisted around one another they are – he has one hand under her head, knotted into her hair, the other hooked behind her knee, digging into her calf. She's clutching at his hair as well, but her other hand is clawed into his thigh and she's pressed so tightly against him that it's hard to tell where she ends and where he begins.

His sense returns all in a rush, and he blushes hot with shame.

"Oh, gods, Sansa," he says, lifting his head from her shoulder to look her in the face. She's flushed, her eyes distant and dreamy and so, so blue, her lips over-full and red, as if she's been eating strawberries and blood oranges. "Did I hurt you? I'm so sorry-"

"Ssh," she murmurs, disentangling herself from him, pushing him gently onto his back while he panics and then curling up almost completely on top of him. "Sleep now."

"But Sansa, we were talking and I-"

"Silly husband," she says, so quietly he's not sure that she's even awake, and he's sure he'd laugh if he weren't so completely and utterly content.


	12. Chapter 12

"Oh, fuck it anyways!" Willas snarls, pulling his knife from his belt and-

"Stop that right now," Sansa says quite firmly, appearing at Gardener's side and working open the stuck buckle, which is all that's keeping Willas from stretching his leg out beside the fire Aldwin has built up. "You must stop getting so annoyed with them – we shall have a new strap made as soon as we find a decent saddler."

He all but moans in relief when the pressure on his knee is relieved, and Sansa runs the back of her fingers from his ankle right up to the middle of his thigh in comfort.

"Garlan!" he shouts, turning to look for his already approaching brother. "Do come here, will you?"

"Certainly, milord, and what did your last servant die of, milord?"

"Pox, milord Garlan," Aldwin inserts cheerfully, slipping past Garlan to help Willas down. "But death suits me, see, so I just kept right on working, milord. Oh, milady Sansa, our Marian's dug up an extra cloak like you asked, if you're still wanting it?"

Sansa smiles gratefully, brushes a kiss over Willas' cheek and darts away into the milling crowd of their annoyingly substantial camp. Willas had hoped that it would be only himself and Sansa, Garlan and Leonette, and a bare minimum of servants on the road to Storm's End, but of course Father had had to be negotiated down from sending half their generals.

"Draining, milord?" Aldwin asks quietly, handing Willas his cane but not straying too far, ready to leap into action should Willas' knee prove less stable even than usual.

"If we had a maester on hand, mayhaps, Aldwin, but I'll make do with something cold for now," he sighs. "And a bit of privacy so I might take off my brace, if that can be arranged."

"Marian's setting up the screens around your and milady's Sansa's fire now, milord, don't you worry," Aldwin promises him with that easy assurance that Willas has always admired so. "None'll dare disturb you then, not while she's stalking about with that ladle of hers."

Garlan badly hides a burst of laughter, but Willas merely smiles – he's seen Marian and her ladle in action, and it is a surprisingly intimidating sight.

"Come, then," he says, hobbling as best he can towards his and Sansa's tent. "I could eat just about anything right now."

* * *

They eat well, and then they retire – it has been a gruelling journey, given that the stormroad is sporadically occupied by men sworn to Stannis Baratheon, the Lannisters, the actual Stormlords and, of course, the occasional member of the Golden Company.

They have travelled without sigils, of course, but hoping that none of the locals would recognise them was a stupid and naïve hope indeed – Willas and Garlan had visited Loras many times while he squired and stayed at Storm's End with Renly, had friends in their own right in the Stormlands, and so they travel as quickly as they can, wearing dark, unmarked cloaks and keeping their hoods up and allowing the servants to do the talking.

Willas shifts on the camp bed – the best in the camp, of course, but still murder on his leg – and pulls Sansa closer under his arm as he thinks.

He and Garlan have plotted and schemed so hard on the journey that both Grandmother Olenna and the Old Man would be proud of them, but he still fears that it won't be enough – what if Grandmother was right? What if Aegon Targaryen does want Sansa? What if he feels that House Tyrell turned their cloaks too easily, time and again? On the Targaryens, on who they had thought to be Robert Baratheon's heir, on Renly, now on the Lannister bastard sitting the throne?

A hundred what-ifs drift through his mind as he falls into an uneasy slumber, Sansa snuffling against his shoulder and his face pressed into her hair.

It does not last very long.

* * *

He awakes to Aldwin and Marian looming on either side of the bed, faces placid but eyes dark.

"Milord Willas, you'd best get dressed quickly," Aldwin says, all but lifting him out of bed and throwing shirt, tunic, breeches, doublet, boots at him. "Come along, milord, come along-"

"Aldwin, what in the name of the Seven-"

"A summons, milord," Marian supplies helpfully, rolling Sansa's stockings up her legs as Sansa laces her shift closed – a pity, Willas thinks absently, he likes to help with both – and then patting Sansa's hair as she rises and turns to fetch a gown. "From His Grace at Storm's End."

Willas blanches and turns to Sansa, whose face is so white it almost seems to glow. Her hand finds his – or his finds hers, it doesn't matter and he doesn't remember – and she swallows hard.

"Then I shall need my finest riding gown, Marian," she says, voice faint. "And my lord shall need the green velvet cloak, Aldwin, with the thread-of-gold. And his good boots, too."

* * *

Storm's End, when they reach it near noon that day, is as large and unapologetically yellow as Willas remembers, but he almost misses the heavy gold-and-black Baratheon banners that had always hung bright in the ever-changing light.

There is something entirely more ominous about Targaryen black-and-scarlet swaying in the wind, three heads snarling from every corner.

They are met not by Prince Aegon himself – an insult that makes Willas grit his teeth and Garlan's mouth tighten – but rather by the man who proclaims himself Hand of the King and Lord of Griffin's Roost, Jon Connington.

Willas frowns at the name.

"I see the rumours of your demise were vastly inflated, my lord," he says quietly, knuckles white on his cane as his leg screams in agony after weeks of hard riding and poor bedding – usually, he has time to rub the worst of the aches out in the mornings before they set out, but this morning…

Sansa squeezes his arm just slightly, her elbow looped through his, and he breathes deeply to show her his thanks.

"Indeed, Lord Tyrell," Connington says, brow arched suspiciously. "You must have been young indeed-"

"I was a boy of near nine," Willas cuts in easily, forcing a small smile. "And living in the High Tower. All whispers come to Oldtown, Lord Connington, as surely as they come to the Spider if not so swiftly."

Connington sniffs dismissively, but he gestures for grooms to come forward to take their horses – Willas flinches at how carelessly they handle Gardener and Whisper in particular, who have been babied by his own hand, although he worries for Florian and Rosette as well – and then beckons for the Tyrells to follow him.

Growing Strong, Willas reminds himself as he almost balks at the kind of lies he fears he will have to tell here. Because We Light the Way.

He can be the best parts of both House Tyrell and House Hightower. He will be. He is.

He must be, else he risks Sansa and his family and Highgarden and Oldtown and the Reach as a whole, and that is something he cannot do.

* * *

Aegon Targaryen is surrounded by Martells and Sands, and Willas' heart sinks at the sight. Friends though he was with Oberyn, he has never been sure if the Sand Snakes save Nym tolerated him for their father's sake or actually did take a liking to him, but he is certain that right now, they despise him for not openly denouncing the family who caused their father's death.

"My lords and ladies Tyrell," Aegon says brightly, sounding surprisingly well-educated despite the presumably haphazard manner of his upbringing. "You are welcome to Storm's End."

Willas notes the famous Targaryen features – the silver hair, the purple eyes – but also notes the boyish excitement, the flush of prideful authority, and prays that he himself is as skilful a manipulator as he was trained to be by his grandfather and uncle.

"Your Grace," he says, bowing at the waist as Sansa and Leonette sink into deep curtsies and Garlan takes the knee. "It is an honour for us to have you receive us in such a manner."

It is rude and foolish and, again, prideful for Aegon to receive them here rather than at the doors, as he should have having ordered them taken hostage as he did, but Willas files that aside for later. He needs to earn the prince's trust, make the younger man like him, and losing his temper because they have been disrespected will do neither.

Aegon seems to survey them for a long moment, watching silently as Garlan and the ladies rise. Sansa curls herself just slightly closer to Willas once she has her arm linked through his, as Leonette does to Garlan, and Willas is certain that those sharp violet eyes miss nothing, not even the way Sansa swallows forcibly before lifting her chin to meet Aegon's gaze.

"You must dine with me tonight," Aegon says after an instant too long. "You will be shown to your rooms. Rest, ready yourselves – we may speak as we eat."

* * *

"Are you quite sure you're alright? Your leg was already hurting so, and there were such a lot of stairs," Sansa frets, settling herself on her knees between his legs in the enormous bathtub and setting to work on rubbing the tension and knots from his leg with gentle hands. "You were in so much pain when you dismounted-"

"I am well enough," he says, letting his head fall back. He is exhausted, of course, because the constant thrum of pain in his leg is draining in so many ways, and he dearly wishes he was at home in Highgarden so Maester Lomys might put his flensing knives to work, but he is here at Storm's End with much to do, so he will let Sansa do what she can and then he will do what he must. "Just tired, my love. A night's sleep in a good bed will do much for me, I promise you."

"If you're sure," she says, worry clear in her voice even as he refuses to look her in the eye so she can't see quite how sore and tired he is, just for the moment. "Is there anything else I might do to help?"

He lifts his head wearily and lifts a hand slowly, brushing his fingertips over the flush across her cheekbone.

"Trust me," he tells her. "Trust that I will keep you safe, and trust that I will not let him have you."

She smiles faintly, and then she leans forward to touch her lips to his.

"I am afraid of them all," she admits in a whisper, "but I trust you."

Given all she's been through, that she's even capable of trust at all gives him cause to thank any gods who might have a care – that's she chooses to trust him makes him want to sing.

* * *

It takes them an age to get back down the stairs, and Willas swears every step of the way to Sansa's scandalised, worried amusement.

Garlan and Leonette give him matching knowing looks when eventually he sets both feet on level ground, leaning hard on his cane and breathing heavily through his nose – he's not sure if he needs more to stop himself crying or swearing again, but his leg is so sore and swollen that it's a close call between the two – and he waves away their concern as soon as he can catch his breath.

"Come, then," he says resignedly. "Let's begin our work here, shall we?"

* * *

Willas always thought that he got along with Nym best of the Sand Snakes, but apparently he was wrong – she looks at him as if he personally murdered her father, and while he has not showed Oberyn's memory the respect it deserved, he thinks that his inaction is justified, given that he has been dealing with a new wife who has been traumatised by the Lannisters.

Sansa sits as close to his side as she can, watching everyone over the rim of her cup with wide, stunned eyes, and he supposes that she is undergoing something of a baptism of fire – it is not every day that she finds herself dropped into the middle of a Dornish feast, after all, and he is fairly certain that she has never before seen a woman dressed in the Dornish fashion before (although given how sheer Nym's excuse for a gown is, Sansa might be excused for thinking that Oberyn's daughter is dressed in the Lysene fashion).

Prince Aegon seems to have taken to Garlan, and Willas is not surprised by that – he does not think Garlan has ever met anyone he could not charm, after all – anymore than he is surprised to find himself spending the entire meal trying to convince Jon Connington that they are not here as spies.

It's going reasonably well, all in all, until talk at table turns to those Great Houses not represented.

The Lannisters, it is agreed, are scum of the highest order, and the Greyjoys are near as bad (Sansa would argue that they are worse, but she is tightly guarding her birth name until they can be sure of Aegon). The Arryns are aloof and near useless to everyone, high up in their birdcage, and the Baratheons are as prone to madness of one sort or another as the Targaryens were ever reputed to be.

The Tullys, Aegon opines, are turncloak scum who betrayed the House that made them great, and when he exalts whoever it was that killed the last Stark, Sansa flinches so violently that she knocks over her cup. The wine, finest Arbor gold, spreads across the starched white linen like a contagion, and Willas curls his fingers through hers, stroking his thumb over her knuckles until she opens her eyes.

"If you will forgive me, your highness," she says, looking Aegon directly in the eye, "I should like to know who it was that killed the last member of House Stark."

"Oh, I don't know who it was – why the interest, Lady Tyrell?"

Sansa's eyes are cold and hard as Willas has never seen before.

"Well, I should like to meet my murderer, your highness, because by your reckoning, I am dead."

Silence greets this proclamation, and Willas catches Garlan's eye just enough to know that his brother is right on the verge of physically diving to Sansa's rescue if the need presents itself.

"You… You are of House Stark, Lady Sansa?"

"My father was Lord Eddard Stark," she says quietly, firmly, "and my mother Lady Catelyn Tully. Again, I ask – who was it that killed the last Stark, Prince Aegon? For I am the last Stark, and I must admit that they did not perform their duty very well."

The silence stretches on, and Willas shifts in his seat, ready to throw himself over Sansa if need be.

"You are, then, Lady Stark," Aegon says slowly, so carefully that Willas can practically see the wheels turning behind his eyes. "And, if the need is there, a figure to which the Riverlands may rally?"

"I did not come here to make more war," Sansa says, sounding small and shy suddenly, as if embarrassed by her outburst. "I wish for peace, your highness. Nothing more than that."

"The last child of a man who was traitor to two kings," Aegon muses softly. "How interesting. How very interesting indeed."

* * *

Sansa departs for bed with Leonette and Garlan as soon as the meal is over, but Willas remains a moment to try and catch Nym – he has few enough friends who care little for his position as heir to Highgarden, and he considered Nym one of them, just as he knows her father was among that number.

She slaps him hard across the face and makes to move on, but he catches her around the arm and pulls her back sharply.

"What have I done to anger you so, Lady Nymeria?" he asks as if he is not quickly glancing down her body for fear of concealed knives. "Surely you are not offended by my marriage?"

"Bedding down with the Lannisters-"

"Unaware of this though you may be, my brother and our wives and I are here to betray the Lannisters, hopefully to their doom. We are only moving so quietly for fear of my sister's life. Our pledging the support of Highgarden must have passed you by."

"Oh, you Tyrells had a finger in every pie," she spits, clearly fuming. "Your sister's on her third king, your little wife is the last heir of the King in the North, and now you're here – did you think nobody would question that?"

"Tell me, Nym – do you think I would marry a girl just to access her political ties? If I was like that, I would have been married years ago, surely."

"You are a Tyrell," she snaps, wrenching her arm free from his grip. "I do not understand what my father saw in you."

"A pity," he says quietly. "I had hoped you might be able to tell me. I never did understand why he lowered himself to be my friend, my lady."

She glares at him in unashamed loathing – damn Father for taking up with the Lannisters anyways! Damn Oberyn for dying! Damn Rhaegar bloody Targaryen for ever taking Lyanna Stark and setting them all up for this! – and strides away, hips rolling with every step in a walk that is purposefully alluring.

Willas turns away in disgust, already dreading the walk up the stairs to his and Sansa's room.

* * *

Sansa looks up from the cup in her hands as Prince Aegon helps him through the door.

"My lord?" she asks, trying so desperately to find the appropriate words for this situation. It is an impossible one, Willas has to admit that, and he blushes furiously, utterly mortified at his own inadequacy.

"My leg seized on the stairs," he admits, "and Prince Aegon happened upon me as I waited for it to loosen – I tried to convince him that I could manage well enough on my own, but he is most persistently kind."

Aegon laughs, bright and merry and irritatingly musical – it is like Margaery's laugh, Willas thinks, calculated to be as seductive as possible without actually seeming so – and Sansa makes a helpless little gesture.

"I could hardly leave my newest supporter sitting in the stairs, could I?" he says as though it should be obvious, smiling winningly – oh, he and Margaery would be a toxic pair indeed – and helping Willas across the room to the nearest chair. "I will send for your brother, my lord. I am sure you would be more comfortable in his care? And mayhaps my maester, Haldon, he might be of assistance to you if you so wish?"

"We would be most grateful for a maester's attendance, your highness," Sansa says before Willas can object, and he frowns at the flush in her cheeks – what is causing it? Are Aegon's tactics working? "And mayhaps for some privacy, if I may be so bold."

Aegon's smile is soft when he looks at Sansa, and Willas wishes he had definite grounds to hit the prince.

"You may be so bold as you please, Lady Sansa," he assures her. "You will be the key to half the realm – as bold as you like, I promise you."

He takes his leave then, and Willas doesn't quite manage to speak to Sansa before Garlan and Leonette are striding through the door and slamming it behind them.

"Come here," Garlan says, hefting Willas' arm over his shoulders and carrying him across the room and into the bedchamber. "Idiot, you should have asked me to wait – why did you do this? Your leg has been-"

Willas cries out as Garlan levers him onto the bed, the pain so excruciating that he barely even notices Sansa and Leonette running into the room.

"Leonette, run and find a maester," Garlan orders, holding Willas down so Sansa can pull off his boots and breeches despite his struggles. "Run! Now!"

"Prince Aegon," Willas grits out, eyes screwed shut tight as Sansa works his breeches down over his knee, "is sending his personal maester. Leave it, Leonette – I will survive some little time yet, I think. I have managed thus far, have I not?"

Sansa gasps in horror when she bares his leg, thumping him squarely in the chest in temper.

"Why didn't you admit to it being so bad?!" she demands, spots of crimson high in the apples of her cheeks, her hands fisted so tight her knuckles are almost silver. "I asked you, Willas, I asked, and you said-"

"I said many things," he grunts, forcing himself to sit up and open the straps on his brace. "Stop shouting at me and help with this, will you?"

She seems startled by how short he is being with her, and while he feels guilty for that he is genuinely in such agonising pain and has so much stupid, irritating jealousy fermenting in his gut that he cannot comfort her in this moment. She looks at him strangely for a moment before knocking his hands aside and unbuckling his brace with nimble, careful fingers, making sure to avoid touching the inflamed skin as little as possible. Willas almost faints from the pain of it when Garlan lifts his leg so Sansa can pull the brace out from underneath it, and he is ashamed of himself when Sansa touches his cheek in sympathy.

"My lord? The maester is here," Leonette calls, guiding in a man – Willas doesn't even look at his face, just the case in his hands, and flops back against the pillows with a sigh of relief. Gods willing, the maester will drain his leg and he will be well again by morning, and then he can make things right with Sansa.

If he does not, he may well be the second man to lose a Stark woman to a Targaryen prince.

* * *

He sleeps only a little that night, but it matters not – Sansa settles herself across him, arms folded with her chin resting on them, and watches him with those enormous eyes of hers.

"What do you think of Prince Aegon?" he asks at last, lifting a hand to push her braid back over her shoulder. He dreads her answer, but he needs it, too – he needs to know if his jealousy, his fear, is warranted.

"He will make a better king than any we have had in a long while," she says thoughtfully. "He is rather too confident, but having good men around him will temper that. Mayhaps. He cannot be worse than-"

She still cannot say Joffrey's name, and the sickened anger that always lingers at the back of Willas' mind flares bright at the flash of pain that rushes across her face.

"No," he agrees, tracing her face with the tips of his fingers. "No, he cannot. But what do you think of him as a man?" he persists, thumb brushing over her lower lip before he pulls her up for a kiss, slow and lingering and a shameless attempt to colour her opinion of Aegon bloody Targaryen.

"He is very handsome," she says. "And quite courteous, when he is not showing off. He reminds me of… Of my brother. Of Robb. Just a little, although they looked nothing alike…"

She rarely if ever speaks of her family, so he keeps quiet and lets her talk.

"Robb would bring me gifts," she says, shifting on top of him so she can hide her face against his shoulder. "Some days he picked flowers in the godswood for me, or if he went riding with Jon and- if they went riding in the wolfswood, he might bring me back a pretty stone from the stream. There is much amber to be found in the streams, and Robb always saved the prettiest pieces for me. He could be horrid, too – when he and Jon were learning to joust, Robb was better, and he was simply vile to Jon…"

She stops, and he thinks that she is finished, but she speaks once more in the smallest voice he has ever heard.

"When we were at King's Landing," she says into his skin, "I was told that Jon had been made Lord Commander of the Night's Watch and that his men had… Had killed him."

"Sansa-"

"So you see, what I said to Prince Aegon is true," she whispers, pressing closer to him and holding on for all she's worth. "I am the last Stark. You are all the family I have."

He hates himself for feeling jealous. Hates himself.


	13. Chapter 13

"Your leg seems much improved, Lord Tyrell," Aegon notes brightly the following morning, when Willas and Garlan are ushered into the solar Aegon has claimed as his own – the solar that was Renly's not so long ago – by the ever-frowning Jon Connington. "I am glad – you seemed in a great deal of pain last night."

"It worsens after being strained, Your Grace," Willas says, as if it were nothing. "I am well, do not worry."

He is not entirely well – he wishes, perhaps for the first time since that tilt, that he had his wheelchair – but he can force a smile and an air of ease when he needs to. He knows that look in Aegon's eyes, that challenge, that guilt at wanting to challenge a cripple, and it is something Willas has hated since the moment he first saw it in anyone's eyes. He will not back down from someone who looks at him like that, not for anything save Sansa's safety – and even then, were there an alternative he would take it.

"Good, then!" Aegon exclaims, clapping his hands excitedly. "To work, my lords – we have much to discuss, I think."

* * *

Much indeed to discuss, it becomes clear as the morning wears on. For every grumble of censure from Connington there is a ringing declaration of trust from Aegon. For every thinly veiled insult to the fidelity of House Tyrell from Connington, there is a firm reassurance of understanding from Aegon.

It is all very confusing, and Willas' head is spinning by the time noon comes and Aegon decides they should break to eat.

"Be sure to give my regards to Lady Tyrell," he says as he bids them farewell for the moment. "And to Lady Stark, as well."

It isn't the first time Aegon has referred to Sansa as Lady Stark – indeed, he seems determined not to refer to her as Lady Tyrell at all, curse him – but it still sets Willas' nerves on edge. The only ones the Martells hate as much as the Lannisters were the Starks, because Rhaegar Targaryen ran away with Lyanna Stark and forsook Elia Martell, and Aegon is surrounded by Martells and half-Martells and Jon bloody Connington, who was, according to Baelor's ever-amused reminisces about his time at court (he'd been careful to keep any mention of the Mad King to himself until Willas was near a man), loyal to the point of idiocy to Rhaegar.

Willas already hates Jon Connington, for his poor-taste jibes about the faithfulness and honour of Stark women if for nothing else. He knows beyond doubt that Sansa will be faithful to him, just as he will to her, but that doesn't mean he isn't jealous of every man who so much as looks at her-

"How's your leg?" Garlan asks, pausing on the first landing of the great staircase and frowning back down to Willas.

"Come here," Willas sighs in defeat, holding out his arm and sighing in relief when Garlan fits himself under and takes half at least of Willas' weight. "It aches – the prince's maester is good, I'll give him that, but I need to rest. I need ice and a day's bed rest at least, two or three most likely, and my wheelchair as well, but instead I am here to try and broker a treaty and keep my wife safe. Gods damn Cersei Lannister and her splayed legs anyways."

"You wouldn't have your little wife if Cersei Lannister hadn't spread those legs of hers for the Kingslayer," Garlan grunts. "You'd still have the Tarlys sniffing about, trying to get a daughter into your bed and then, hopefully, into Highgarden-"

"Yes, thank you, Garlan," Willas manages to huff out, wincing as he turns on his good ankle on the edge of a step. "I am perfectly aware that Elayne Tarly has been an admirer of mine for some time. Did I tell you that I went to bed after that last tourney Father hosted only to find her naked as a babe between my sheets? Lucky enough Aldwin had gone ahead to prepare my bath and was already giving her something of a dressing down, as it were."

"There was talk that she was with child before Renly crowned himself," Garlan warns. "She was claiming it to be yours."

"More power to her, because I never so much as touched her if I could avoid it, much less lay with her," Willas says sharply. "The only woman I've lain with since I came back from the High Tower is Sansa."

"That's no great achievement-"

"No, not since I brought Sansa to meet the Old Man and Brightsmile and Malora. Since last I went alone, Garlan."

Garlan pulls him rudely to a halt, jarring Willas' leg and muttering a sympathy, but his eyes remain wide and his jaw slack with surprise.

"Willas, that's years!"

"Yes, well, better celibacy than knowing every woman who looks at you with interest sees Highgarden and hopes you're so sunk in self-hatred that you'll not see the pity and greed in her endeavours and might even marry her."

"Oh, come now-"

"I'm serious, Garlan," Willas insists. "It's as if every woman in the Reach thought I had no chance of ever bedding a woman on my own merits, so they took it upon themselves to pity me in the hopes of earning my gratitude. It was sickening."

"So until you wed Sansa, you hadn't been with a woman in…?"

"Well, a good long while. That's enough to be getting along with."

Willas cannot help but wonder what his brother would say if he were to discover the surprising brevity of Willas' tally of lovers, and almost smiles at the notion of Garlan ever finding out that the memory of his second and third lovers conjures up an echo of Dornish firepeppers and sourwine on the back of his tongue…

Actually, best none ever knows about that – such things are frowned upon in all but the most liberal company north of the Marches, he knows, but the idea of Garlan's face were he ever to find out the truth of Willas' adventures in Dorne is most amusing.

"But there was that girl you told me about, Baelor's wife's niece, the Rowan girl-"

"Melinda died not long after I was crippled, Garlan," Willas reminds him. "Brigands on the oceanroad, don't you remember?"

"Oh, well, there had to have been others who weren't interested in Highgarden. Damn it all, Willas, you might have a bad leg but you've an alright sort of face – Tyrion Lannister had a reputation for womanising and he doesn't even have that!"

"He's also willing to pay," Willas says sourly. "I have some self-respect left to me, brother – I would rather not have to buy the affections of anyone if I may avoid it."

"How very high-minded of you."

Garlan's worried disapproval is tangible, and Willas supposes that by many standards he has behaved somewhat foolishly – he knows plenty who would have taken advantage of the potential for pity of his bad leg, were they in his position – but he never wanted to find himself in the position where he relied on whores for his baser needs. He never liked the idea of fucking absolutely everything with a cunt and a pulse, even as a young man (Malora's influence, he has no doubt, and the Old Man's as well), and that, too, is probably seen as peculiar and foolish by many of his peers.

"I chose to remain celibate these past few years, Garlan. It seemed best to wait and find a woman who saw me rather than Highgarden."

"Oh, as Sansa saw you and not an escape from the Lannisters."

"That's different," he says before he can stop himself, blushing crimson as Garlan grins and begins up the stairs again.

"Do tell me how, Willas. I am curious."

"It just is," he says stubbornly, knowing that Garlan will laugh if he tries to explain the complicated tangle of feelings that makes up his marriage to Sansa. He's not even sure he could, of course, which just makes things even more complicated, but he is certain that Garlan is the last person he wishes to try for save perhaps Grandmother.

* * *

"I need you to declare openly," Aegon says, leaning back and folding his hands together. "Even if it is in supposed rebellion against your father – rally what Houses you can in the Reach and bring their levies to me."

"We- your highness, that's madness!" Garlan exclaims, surging to his feet and throwing his hands into the air. "Half our forces are spread out across the Crownlands and Riverlands keeping the peace, we cannot call them to arms!"

Willas stays where he is, considering it all.

"We cannot call back the men from the west coast," he says. "House Hightower and their bannermen must stay near Oldtown to defend against the Ironmen. The same goes for House Redwyne. There are other Houses I may be able to influence, but… It will not be quick, sire."

Garlan turns to him, eyes wide.

"You cannot be serious," he says disbelievingly. "Willas-"

"If we are to declare rebellion against Father, then yes, I am serious. He will understand, I think, and I have more acquaintances who will be useful to us now than you might think."

"Willas-"

"If only we had Loras with us," Willas sighs, tapping the head of his cane anxiously. "He is more popular even than you, brother, and would be very useful indeed."

"We cannot rebel against Father!" Garlan insists. "Even if it is not a true rebellion, it could divide the Reach and those loyal to Father will never accept you as their true lord and those loyal to you will refuse to accept Father back!"

"Which is why you will go and convince them of the truth of matters."

"What?!"

"Well, I can hardly make a mad dash around the Reach, what with my leg, and we cannot rely on ravens to carry messages of such a sensitive nature. Mayhaps go to Highgarden first, speak with Mother – she would be willing to help."

Aegon clears his throat, and Willas smiles slightly.

"Regardless of your physical superiority, Garlan, I am your senior in both years and rank within House Tyrell," Willas says quietly. "I will order you if I must."

* * *

They manage to hold off until they reach Willas and Sansa's rooms, but as soon as the door closes behind them they burst into peals of laughter.

"Do you think he believed it?" Garlan huffs, shaking his head and helping Willas across to the chair by the fire. "Were we convincing enough, do you think?"

"I'm just glad Connington was called away," Willas admits, adjusting his leg and grinning up at Garlan. "He would have seen through us a mile away – to think that we hadn't considered giving him what armies aren't under Lannister control or fighting the Greyjoys! Does he think us fools?"

Sansa shushes him half-heartedly while Leonette pours wine for them, but they're too busy laughing to really care – this is the first real victory they can claim over Aegon, the first true measure of his understanding of their politics, and it is such a relief to have confirmation that he is as under-informed as Grandmother told them to hope that there is little to do but laugh.

At least, until the raven comes before dinner, while Sansa and Leonette are dressing.

At least until then.

* * *

Sansa runs her fingers through Willas' hair, sitting on the arm of his chair, but it is not enough. She does not know what will be enough.

"I will go and make our excuses," she says, standing up. "I will not be long-"

"No," Willas says, lifting his head to look at her with bleary, pleading eyes. "No, please, Sansa, please-"

"One of us must go," she soothes him, wiping away the tears staining his cheeks, biting her lip when he leans closer and buries his face in her skirts like a child. Leonette has already pulled Garlan away to the privacy of their rooms, and Sansa wonders if Willas would be willing to reveal himself like this if his favourite brother were still here.

His only brother, now.

"Please," he begs, arms tight around her to hold her near him, "please stay, Sansa, please-"

"Someone must make our excuses," she points out gently, running her fingers through his hair again. She remembers Mother doing that for her when she was upset, sitting her on the edge of the bed and combing her hair until she calmed down. Sansa used to do it for Bran, too, if he hurt himself badly or if Theon said something nasty.

Theon. She hates him more than almost anyone.

"Don't go," Willas pleads, shaking his head, his hair ruffling against her stomach. "I can't- Sansa, please."

"I won't be long," she promises, carefully disentangling herself from his hold and wincing in sympathy when he curls in on himself, shoulders shaking. Aldwin is standing in the corner with Marian, both watching Willas with worry in their eyes, and Aldwin nods and motions for Sansa to run before Willas can catch her again.

She darts next door and Leonette answers almost before she knocks – Garlan is in better condition than Willas, but not by much, by the looks of things, but that may be because he still seems too stunned to truly react.

"I was just preparing to go to Prince Aegon," he says hoarsely when he sees who it is, coming to the door and wrapping an arm around Leonette's waist. He does not sound quite as broken, as utterly shattered as Willas. "I-"

"I will go," Sansa says, resting a hand on his arm for a moment. "I of all of us knew Loras the least – please, allow me to do this."

Garlan just shakes his head, sniffing fiercely.

"My lady-"

"Garlan," she says gently. "I will manage well enough with the prince – I survived the Lannisters, did I not?"

Were it not for Willas, she knows she would hardly be able to speak the name Lannister, much less jape about her time with them, but she has him and he has helped her so much, so she can and she does speak the name and jape – however darkly – about her time spent as hostage in King's Landing.

"Sansa, I cannot ask that you do this for us-"

"I am of House Tyrell, am I not?" she asks mildly, lifting her chin and looking him square in the eye. He has the same eyes as all his siblings, honey-brown and warm, but now they are red with tears and so shocked, almost blinded by as-yet unhandled grief.

Sansa knows grief well – they are old friends by now, achingly familiar with one another, and she knows that it will be a long while before Garlan and Willas are near prepared to truly handle their pain.

Willas in particular, she fears, because for all that her husband is so strong and even aloof, sometimes, so practical and capable, he is so soft underneath it all, feels so much so strongly, that she worries for just how deeply Loras' death will affect him.

"Give me a moment and I will accompany you," Garlan sighs at last, head falling forward and arm tightening around Leonette. "I- just a moment, my lady."

Sansa nods and bobs the smallest of curtsies before stepping back to allow Leonette to close the door.

It is not until she is alone in the corridor that Sansa realises how late the hour is – even with the lamps lit, it is dark, and there is a chill in the air that prompts her to pull her heavy shawl closer around her shoulders.

She reaches out a hand to touch the wall and jerks back when the stone is cold under her fingertips – she longs for Winterfell in that moment, longs for the blood-warm walls and the sound of Arya and Bran chasing one another through the halls, Robb and Jon laughing in the practice yard, Mother laughing as Father tells her some story or other-

"Lady Stark?"

She turns, surprised to see Prince Aegon standing just down the corridor, his silver hair shining in the gloom.

"Your highness," she murmurs, dipping low into a curtsy as he came closer. "May I offer some assistance?"

"When you did not come to dine with us, we worried – Haldon tells me that Lord Willas received a raven earlier this evening…?"

A tiny scroll of parchment to break something in both Willas and Garlan – Sansa understands how they feel, knows from bitter experience precisely how they feel. She remembers how she felt on hearing of Bran's death and knows how Margaery must feel, and she cannot help the surge of aching sympathy for her goodsister that stops her words in her throat.

Word from Dragonstone. Loras did not survive. Return home soon. Father.

"He did," she says, folding her hands together to stop them shaking. Stark boys dead, older girl heir to Winterfell. "His brother, his youngest brother, Ser Loras – he was injured in the siege of Dragonstone and he recently succumbed to his injuries. It has… Shaken my lord and Ser Garlan."

Aegon is quiet for a long moment, tapping his chin with one finger before speaking.

"This is the same brother who was serving as a knight of the Kingsguard to the Lannister boy?"

"Yes, sire," she says quietly. "My goodbrother. I was about to ask if you would pardon us for not dining with you this evening – I was merely awaiting Ser Garlan before coming to you-"

"Do you look like your aunt, my lady?" he asks suddenly, stepping closer to her. "The one who seduced my father away from my mother and brought about the ruin of a dynasty?"

"I have heard it said that it was your father who seduced my aunt away from her betrothed, your highness," Sansa is surprised to hear herself say. "And no, I do not have her look – they say I am the image of my mother, who was a Tully of Riverrun."

He touches her hair, where it falls forward over her shoulder the way Willas likes, and she flinches back from him in surprise.

"I have heard so much of your aunt, you see," he murmurs. "My cousins and Jon tell me that she was a temptress, a wanton hussy who wished for a crown and damned the consequences of her actions. Lemore, though, Lemore says different. She knew your family, you see, and she says that your aunt was… Young. Misguided."

"I never met her, your highness," Sansa says, startled by the sudden appearance of the chilly wall at her back – she hadn't realised she was moving.

"No, I suppose you wouldn't have," he agrees, voice soft and velvety and she shouldn't be blushing but she is, think of Willas, although she does not thank that this is the sort of blush Willas rises in her cheeks with little more than a smile, and Aegon touches her hair again. "I can see similarities in your situations, though – trapped with an older man who cannot be enough for you-"

"I am not trapped with my husband, your highness," she says sharply, straightening her shoulders. She loves Willas, has loved him at least a little almost since he did not make her strip bare on their wedding night, and Aegon's presumption is improper and downright rude and a whole host of other things. "And if you will excuse me-"

His hand is hot on her arm, and suddenly she might be in King's Landing once more, Robb marching south and Joffrey so angry and only Tyrion and the Hound as meagre defences against mailed fists and the flat of a sword and Joffrey's leering groping attentions-

"Lady Stark-"

"My name," she grits out, stiff with terror and remembered pain, "is Lady Tyrell, your highness."

"You are the head of House Stark," he says lightly, fingers tightening on her arm. "A House in exile, mayhaps, but a powerful name nonetheless. Until the foolishness with my father and your aunt, a powerful ally of House Targaryen."

That he can call a war in which so many people died "foolishness" turns Sansa's stomach. Willas would never-

"I cannot promise you Winterfell," he tells her, lifting his other hand to curl pale fingers around her chin. "Nor Riverrun to the Tullys."

It's odd, she thinks, because when Willas does just the same, touches her like this, tips her face up to his, she blushes and smiles and leans into his touch, leans closer to him in the hope of a kiss or even just a smile (because Willas smiles the way Father smiled, more with his eyes than his mouth, and that is how she knows she can trust his smiles), but Aegon's skin on hers repulses her, he is just another spoiled princeling taking whatever he wants-

"Is there something the matter, your highness? Little sister?"

She jerks away from Aegon and practically throws herself at Garlan, ashamed of herself for being so afraid because she is a Stark, she should be braver than this, but it's as if the scars on her back that Willas always washes so gently when they bathe together are on fire and-

"My brother would not like to hear of his wife being… Harassed," Garlan says quietly, those warm Tyrell eyes icy. There is something there that Sansa has only seen once in Willas, on the night they dined with Garth the Gross and he made no attempt to guard his appreciative watching of Sansa's body. Willas was furiously angry that night, absolutely raging, but for her rather than with her, and she can tell that Garlan feels the same.

"Lady Stark and I were just talking, that is all," Aegon says easily. "I am sorry to hear of your younger brother, Ser Garlan."

Garlan's mouth twists into a thin line, and he ducks his head.

"Not so sorry as we are, your highness. If you will excuse us?"

"You are displeased with me, Ser Garlan. I am sorry-"

"It is nothing, your highness," Garlan says dismissively, turning slightly and releasing Sansa into Leonette's embrace – how strange, Sansa thinks, that she did not even notice her goodsister standing there – before turning back to Aegon. "Or, it will not be, I hope?"

Aegon jerks back as if slapped, eyes flashing to Sansa and away. His pale cheeks flush with- she can't say what, really, chagrin or embarrassment or annoyance, but he makes a perfunctory bow, barely more than a nod, and sweeps away.

"Come," Garlan says tiredly. "I've sent for food. May we join you for the evening meal, Sansa?"

* * *

Willas knows that his emotions are mayhaps running to the extreme at the moment, but he is fairly certain that even were he not shaken to his very core he would right now want to take Garlan's sword and skewer Aegon bloody Targaryen with it for daring to touch Sansa.

"I will kill him if he lays a hand on you ever again," he promises her, pressing his face into her hair and breathing in that not-rosemary scent. "Once I have killed Cersei damned Lannister, I'll kill him-"

"Enough," Sansa says gently, stroking his hair with gentle fingers. "Enough. No more blood is to be spilled on my account."

"Sansa-"

"You have eaten nothing, Willas," she says, coaxing his head up from her shoulder. "You must eat. You will fall ill if you do not."

"She is right," Leonette agrees, pushing Garlan's plate firmly back in front of him when he shoves it away. "Please, both of you – it will do no good to starve yourselves."

No good. No, nothing will do any good now, not with Loras, beautiful, arrogant, stupid, brilliant Loras dead in such a terrible way – although Willas cannot help but wonder if mayhaps his little brother would prefer death to life without his beauty, with horrible injuries that would prevent him from fighting, without Renly.

"I have no appetite," he says honestly, curling his arm tighter around Sansa's waist and pulling her closer. "I am sorry, my love, but I- I cannot eat."

Her eyes are soft and her face warm with compassion when she leans over and takes a small bunch of grapes from the bowl on the table.

"For me?" she pleads, pressing a fruit to his lips until he gives in. She watches as he chews and swallows, and then lays her palm against his cheek. "I do understand, Willas, but you must eat. There is still so much to do."

"Will you feed me like that, sweetling?" Garlan asks Leonette in a mockery of his usual good humour. Leonette smiles and ruffles his hair affectionately, but she hands him a knife and a lump of cheese.

"Sansa is a softer touch than I," she says firmly. "You are more than capable of feeding yourself, my lord of Brightwater, so do it."

Willas frowns up at Sansa, but she is nothing but not persistent, and he finds himself eating through half the bowl of fruit in much the same way Garlan seems surprised to find most of the bread and cheese and even some of the meat gone.

"A poor meal," Leonette murmurs, shaking her head as she spoons up the last of the spicy lamb stew she and Sansa ate, "but better than nothing, I suppose."

"Do you remember," Garlan says suddenly, "how Loras would refuse to eat something if Margaery did not like it?"

"And if she liked something, he would eat it even if he hated it," Willas agrees. "I remember."

Garlan nods and stands, twisting his hand through Leonette's before nodding again.

"We will take our leave," he says, clapping Willas on the shoulder as he passes. Leonette hesitates a moment with Sansa, some question Willas cannot read in her eyes, but Sansa merely nods and smiles slightly and it seems enough to satisfy Leonette.

"Goodnight," he calls back over his shoulder, already pulling Sansa to sit in his lap. She ate sitting on the arm of his chair, and even that is too far away right now. "Sleep well, brother."

Garlan laughs once, a harsh sound Willas understands perfectly because he feels the same way himself, and then the door shuts and he and Sansa are alone at last.

"Come to bed," he says against her neck. "I- I need to hold you, Sansa. I need-"

"I know," she assures him, rising with that fluid elegance he has come to admire so and helping him to his feet. He is unsteady, stumbling more than usual, but she settles under his arm and helps him to their bedchambers and to the bed, and she has him stripped to his smallclothes before he truly registers that she is undressing him.

"Oh," he says blankly. "I am sorry, love. I- I am sorry."

She strips down to her smallclothes without saying a word, pulls on her nightgown and slips into bed, waiting for him with an expression of such patience as he cannot understand. He knows that she was shaken by Aegon's attentions, but it is almost as if she is ignoring it so she may deal with his pain.

He unclasps the buckles of his brace and sets it aside, and as soon as he is under the covers she curls herself around him, her head over his heart.

"I need to hold you as well," she whispers, fingers tight on his ribs, and he wraps his arms around her as completely as he can.

"My little brother, Sansa," he says, feeling wretched for not being able to hold onto his grief as she does, as Garlan apparently does. "My baby brother."

What little sleep they get that night is fitful, his nightmares full of Loras boiled alive in thick black oil, and if he were to guess at the nature of Sansa's, he would say that hers are full of groping hands and tearing cloth before court.


	14. Chapter 14

"It will be a long day," Sansa says softly, sitting on the floor at his feet and rubbing feeling into his leg with careful hands, "but then, if Prince Aegon has any sense of propriety, we may leave for Highgarden."

It is raining, which seems appropriate, and Willas sighs.

"I know, love," he says, reaching down to cup her chin and turn her face up to his. There is such warmth and compassion in her eyes that he almost breaks down once more, but he has work to do today and cannot afford to waste any more time on pointless, shameful tears. "I know. Still…"

"The sooner you go to Prince Aegon, the sooner we may return home," she reminds him, and that she thinks of Highgarden as home makes him smile just slightly. "There now, is that better?"

He can feel his foot, which is more than he could before she started, so he nods and offers her his hand as she rises. She leans in and presses a kiss to his hair, oddly maternal, and then swishes away in a twist of copper curls and not-rosemary to gather a plate for him. She is dressed in green today, the colour of fresh moss, and her hair is pinned away from her face to tumble loose down her back.

She looks exquisite, and he tells her so when she returns and takes the seat beside his. Her blush is so pretty that he has to trace his fingertips over the curve of her cheekbone, and she holds his hand against her face with a small, sad smile.

"I am not going anywhere," she promises him. "You do not need to fear my loss, Willas."

He sighs again and picks at the bread and fruit she brought for him, and then Garlan knocks at the door, looking pale and tired and as lost as Willas himself feels, has felt since that damned raven arrived yesterday evening.

"Come, then," Garlan calls, folding his arms and leaning against the doorframe with a ghost of a smile. "Let us tame the dragon, hmm?"

* * *

There is considerable taming to be done, it would seem, because the prince is more confrontational than before, arguing against everything Willas and Garlan offer – Willas wonders if the inclusion of Nym and Arianne to their meetings has anything to do with that – and scowling when they prove that they know better than he does.

Tyene lets herself into the room near midday, her usual serene smile firmly in place as she settles herself at Arianne's side, eyes wide and innocent and decidedly blank. Obara and Nym and even Sarella, clever, wickedly amusing Sarella, may be more obviously dangerous, but Willas has always wondered if mayhaps Tyene is not the most lethal of Oberyn's brood. There is so much of Oberyn's cunning hidden behind that septa's face that she can only be lethal, can only be as much a hazard as her father and more, because at least Oberyn made no effort to hide the fact that he was a cad – he was entirely brazen about it, and all the more fun because of it.

"If it please your highness," she murmurs to Aegon in the middle of one more argument, when he is trying to insist that at least some of the Arbor's fleet be given to him to attack King's Landing, "mayhaps turning west would be of greater benefit to you?"

* * *

Tyene catches Willas' hand afterwards, tugging him away from Garlan and from her sisters and Aegon.

"My sister was… Unconscionably rude to you the other day," she says, eyes wide and beseeching. "Pray you forgive her, my lord – we are all overcome with grief for our dear father."

"As you say, my lady," he grits out, longing for the solitude of his and Sansa's rooms for just a few moments before he and Garlan must discuss what Aegon demanded this morning. "If I may-"

"You must see how difficult this is for us all, Willas-"

"What I must do is conclude our business here as quickly as possible so my brother and our wives and I may return to Highgarden at the earliest possible opportunity. What I must do is remove my wife from the company of a man who frightened her so thoroughly last night that she hardly slept a wink. What I must do is do right by my family, Tyene, and that is what I intend to do. Now, if you will excuse me-"

"Aegon is jealous," she hisses. "Don't you see, Willas? He is jealous of you having a wife and a family – he does not see himself as one of us, not truly, and he wonders if mayhaps that is more important than winning his throne and defeating the Lannisters."

"Then he is a fool," Willas says on reflex. "Surely he cannot think that the Lannisters will allow him time to form healthy relationships with what family he has and to find a wife? The man is an idiot if he does!"

"Precisely," Tyene agrees, and Willas sees at last that he has been backed into a corner. "Which is why he needs advisors from outside his family. Advisors with a good working knowledge of Westerosi politics, of the armies of the Seven Kingdoms. Advisors like yourself and your brother, my lord."

She curtsies then and backs away with Oberyn's smile playing about her lips.

"Think on it, my lord," she calls softly. "And hurry back from Highgarden."

* * *

"Do you know," Willas says as he lies with his head resting against Sansa's belly after they've eaten, "I can almost understand why House Tyrell has ancestrally hated House Martell at this precise moment in time."

Sansa laughs quietly and strokes his hair, leaning further back into the pillows. "I wish there was some way I might help."

He struggles upright and then settles himself alongside her, wrapping an arm around her and pulling her close.

"You can stay here, away from Aegon," he says into her hair when she pushes him easily onto his back and curls up on his chest. "That will at least put my mind partially at ease."

Her lips touch against the scar under his left collarbone, a remnant of a particularly adventurous trip to the Oldtown harbour with his youngest uncle, Humfrey, when he was a boy (the Old Man had shouted himself hoarse at them both for that, even though it had all been Willas' idea in the first place and he was the only one who had been hurt, mostly because of his own foolish bravado and the false belief that all ten year old boys share that they are, in fact, invincible, and at Baelor for being stupid enough to let them out of his sight for more than an instant), and he sighs.

"They are grieving for their father," she murmurs, turning her face to look at him. "Give them time, Willas. They will come around. Prince Aegon needs the Reach if he wants to take the rest of the Seven Kingdoms – the Stormlands will fight him to the last, you said it yourself, and even if he has the Golden Company, it is not enough. He needs Highgarden's support if he wishes to claim the Iron Throne."

"I did say that, didn't I? I imagine I say a great many things that serve no purpose other than to depress everyone who hears them."

She taps her fingertips against his lower lip, then the tip of his nose, as if in reprimand.

"You are very morose tonight," she teases gently, sitting up and tucking her hair behind her ears, back over her shoulders, so he can't play with it unless he sits up as well. "We will be on the road home soon, remember – just a little while longer. Come, you should bathe – the water will be cold if you don't come now."

He sighs and lets her gently guide him across the room, stripping off carelessly along the way, too tired even to be ashamed of the way she helps him into the enormous tub.

"Join me," he implores once he's settled in, catching her by the smallest finger of her right hand just as she turns away. "Please?"

She smiles, touches his face, and peels off her clothes slowly. There's no seduction intended – Sansa is always careful of her clothes – but by the time she's bending down to roll down her stockings, her hair parting to spill down either side of her neck, leaving her back exposed to him, he's as hard as he ever remembers being.

She raises an eyebrow when she notices, and he blushes.

"I did not ask you to join me so I could make love to you," he promises, not a little embarrassed, but she smiles and slips into the water with him anyways, on her knees straddling his hips but not actually touching him.

"We will be home soon," she whispers, sinking down onto him slowly, her eyes steady on his as she takes his face in her hands. "We will be at Highgarden again soon," she breathes as she rises and then falls again, every movement gentle and so exquisite he can't possibly think straight. "We will be home soon-"

He kisses her then, leaning forward and sliding on arm around her waist, his other hand cradling her nape, and his good leg bends to steady them so he can keep moving with her as he kisses her with the same languid rhythm as their hips. She has one hand braced on the edge of the bathtub, but the other is scratching over his scalp just as he likes, just as slowly as everything else.

"Home," he whispers, dropping his face to the crook of her shoulder when that tension pulls taut in the base of his spine, when the rocking of his hips becomes uneven. "You and I and home," he gasps, turning his face to kiss sloppy, open-mouthed love into her skin. "Oh, Sansa-"

She makes the most delicious little sound in the back of her throat, somewhere between a moan and a sigh, and then she takes his hand from her hair and guides it between them, between her legs, and he is only too happy to oblige, to bring her with him to the peak that is looming ever closer, the tension is pulling tighter-

"Home," she reminds him, her mouth a caress against the pulse hammering in his temple, and he jerks and pulls her down hard onto him and spills into her with a moan, coaxing her to her release a moment later with the press of his fingers as she likes. "Home," she sighs as she sags against him, loose and lazy and so trusting it just about breaks his heart, because for her to be able to trust him at all is a miracle, as he leans back against the bathtub. "We will give Aegon Targaryen our support, and we will go home."

He kisses her hair, breathing in the sharp scent of it, and then laughs.

"You know," he murmurs, wrapping his arms around her and pulling her tighter against him, "the purpose of a bath is usually to become cleaner."

* * *

It's not until the following morning that he realises his mistake.

"I should not have finished inside you," he says as he pulls her stays tighter, having dismissed Marian and Aldwin so that he might have this conversation with Sansa. "Please, Sansa, forgive me, it was a foolish thing to do-"

"I am your wife," she says firmly, motioning that he has pulled tight enough, and then she waits patiently for him to tie off the laces before turning to face him. "And it is not the first time you have done so, after all."

"But we have agreed to postpone having children," he says, angry with himself and worried for her – neither of them are prepared for children, not yet – as he takes her hands. "I can send for the maester, ask that he prepares-"

"No," she says even more firmly. "If I do take moon tea, I do not want Prince Aegon and the Martells to know of it. I will wait until we return home."

"The longer you wait the more dangerous it is, is it not?" he asks, feeling sick and remembering-

"I do not know for certain, but I imagine so," Sansa admits, watching him curiously. "Have you past experience, my lord?"

He does, that was how he recognised the smell of the tansy that evening while they were still at King's Landing, but now is not the time to share those memories with her.

"Some," is all he says, and then he bows his head to kiss her knuckles. "Please, Sansa-"

"If I am with child, I am with child," she says quietly, her eyes so sincere that he can't help but admire her bravery. She is so very young still, so fragile in so many ways, and yet she is so brave. "I think I might like a child," she adds in a small voice. "I hope I might be a good mother."

"I think you will be a wonderful mother," he assures her, still holding her hands to his mouth. "But Sansa, if you still wish to postpone-"

"What will be, will be," she whispers. "We have both lost- Would it truly be so terrible for us to have a child now?"

"I can think of nothing I want more than to have you bear my children," he admits, letting go of her hands so he can pull her close, "but I do not want to force that on you before you are ready, my love."

She nuzzles her way under his chin, hair catching and snarling on his beard, and then she sighs.

"I do not know if I will ever be ready, but that is no reason we should not try."

* * *

This morning's council with Aegon and the Sands is less antagonistic than yesterday's, which is a relief – Willas isn't sure he could take another day of Aegon demanding things that he has no right to demand. He still seems unaware of (wilfully or otherwise) how precarious his position here in Westeros truly is, and Willas and Garlan find themselves dropping less than subtle hints about how ridiculous Aegon's claims that he would be able to take the realm without the swords of the Reach are.

"He's a child playing at being a warrior," Garlan says over lunch, dunking a chunk of bread into his soup as though both have offended him somehow. "He's been spoiled and pampered his whole life, and no matter that they've trained him – he was trained for kinging, not for soldiering. He really is-"

"Hold your tongue," Leonette scolds, thwacking him over the knuckles with her spoon. "Honestly, man, have you no sense?"

Garlan pouts like a child, but Sansa giggles into her cup of nettle tea and Leonette grins, but then Garlan sighs heavily and…

"Do you remember-"

"Mother doing that to Loras when he tried to steal her strawberries?"

"Exactly."

* * *

"You have the right to swear loyalty to me in your father's name," Aegon says, leaning back in the big winged chair (he doesn't fill it out right, like Renly used) and folding his arms. "I would ask you do that before you return to Highgarden. We might discuss the details of our arrangement after-"

"We will swear open allegiance now," Willas breaks in. "Our family is away from King's Landing. We ask only that Tommen Waters be spared – he is a child, and he has nothing to do with the Lannisters' doings."

"He is sitting my throne."

"Your aunt would say that you are a pretender to her throne," Garlan says lightly, examining his signet ring. "And yet here we are."

"The support of Highgarden and House Tyrell is nothing to take lightly," Willas adds, steepling his fingers and frowning over them. "We have the largest armies in the realm, we are the wealthiest house after the Lannisters – possibly as wealthy as them now, considering the money the Queen has wasted on building fleets that were near destroyed in taking Dragonstone. We have the fealty of House Hightower, and we are the only people in the realm with the capacity to feed the North and the Riverlands now that they have been ravaged and winter is coming."

"You also have the true heir to Winterfell under your sway," Aegon murmurs, eyes darkening. "Lady Stark-"

"Is a Tyrell by marriage," Willas says sharply. "My wife wishes to remain my wife, your highness, and so she will remain my wife."

"Who then are we to repair to Winterfell?"

"My brother's second son, I would imagine," Garlan pipes up, smiling slightly. "It may be that Winterfell is held in trust for a time, but it will pass to one of Stark blood."

"It will just happen that that person will also have Tyrell blood," Willas agrees, "and, after all, my wife and her brothers and sister were Starks with Tully blood – you yourself are a Targaryen with Martell blood. It is no bad thing for the Great Houses to be interlinked, I think."

Aegon looks very young when he scowls at them, and Willas feels very old – twenty-four is not old, he scolds himself, slotting his fingers together and sitting up straighter.

"We do not mean to lecture, your highness," he says lightly. "But my wife is the only remaining Stark – her brothers are all dead, her sister probably as well. If our children do not take Winterfell, it will pass to… Robert Arryn is the next male heir to Robb Stark's line, I believe, and he is already Lord of the Eyrie and, if Edmure Tully's wife births a girl, heir to Riverrun. You would not want a sickly boy to be lord of so much of the realm, surely?"

"Mayhaps the Starks should not be restored to Winterfell, then," Aegon counters. "Mayhaps some Northern House will prove themselves-"

"The North will always rally to Winterfell, and there must be a Stark in Winterfell," Lord Connington interrupts from his place in the corner. Willas had forgotten that the older man was even in the room, he sits so quietly. "Lord Willas and Ser Garlan have the right of it, your grace – but that is not a concern for today."

There is a warning in Jon Connington's tone for Aegon, one Willas only notices because he remembers receiving near identical warnings of his own from Baelor once upon a time, and Willas is glad that someone in Aegon's inner circle has the good sense to warn the prince away from Sansa.

"We will give you our oath," Willas says after a long, tense silence. "But please, your highness – let us go home to bury our brother. We beg it of you."

Another silence, and then "Tomorrow. Tonight, we will feast our alliance, and tomorrow you may go home to Highgarden."

Aegon turns his disquieting gaze – those violet eyes are unnerving – to the window.

"I never had the chance to know my sister," he says quietly. "Mourn your brother, and then help me avenge all that has been taken from us by the Lannisters."


	15. Chapter 15

Willas has to lean heavily on Garlan to get down the stairs for the feast that night, jaw clenched and face white with pain. His leg gave out on the stairs earlier, when they'd been coming back from meeting with Aegon, and no matter what he says, Sansa knows he needs Maester Lomys and his wheelchair and a great deal of bedrest.

They don't have those luxuries here at Storm's End, though, and there is still the ride to Highgarden ahead of them, so she slips under his arm, trying her best to take some of his weight even though he's so stubborn and proud that he's reluctant to accept her help.

The feast is in full swing when they enter the great hall (he was right, everything here is very big and very yellow), and so nobody seems to really notice how hard it is for Willas to make the walk from the doors to the high table where space has been left for them as guests of honour.

A strange noise pushes past Willas' teeth when he sits down (heavily, the relief obvious in his eyes), and his knuckles are still silver-white on the head of his cane, but he waves aside her concern.

"I'm fine," he insists, even though he's clearly not, but Sansa knows he'll get snappish (more than he is now) if she presses the issue, so instead she steels herself and turns to Princess Arianne, sitting between her and Prince Aegon.

Not for the first time, Sansa wishes she was as brave as Arya. Arya would refuse to be intimidated by the Dornish and the Dragon Prince. Arya would know how to stand up and demand that Aegon stop looking at her as he does. Arya would know how to force Willas to do as he was told and rest his leg.

Arya would know how to ask just how Willas knew so much about moon tea.

Well, she'd just ask, she wouldn't think about how, but she would never have allowed Willas to just get away without explaining that. It worries Sansa, makes her wonder all sorts of things – has he a mistress? Some low-born lover? Is that why he put off marrying for so long?

She wants very much to believe that he loves her, that he is faithful, but he is a man and he is so good and kind and handsome, and it makes a terrible sort of sense for him to have a lover. She remembers women talking of their husbands in the early days of marriage, of men being insatiable, but Willas has never been like that – he shares her bed every night, even if they do not lie together, but she does not spend every hour of the day in his company, and it is entirely possible-

"Sansa?" he says, touching her hand (he's let go of his cane, which means the release of pressure on his knee has eased the pain, thank the gods) and looking at her curiously. "You were miles away, love – are you well?"

She smiles and nods, turning her hand to lace her fingers with his. "Tired, my lord, and eager to be home. That is all."

She knows he hates her calling him "my lord," but it always strikes her as improper to call him by his name in public – and besides, there's something very lordly about him that she likes, even if he seems oblivious to it himself.

"We leave tomorrow," he reminds her, lifting her hand to press a kiss to her knuckles. He looks far more tired than she feels, almost grey he's so pale, with deep shadows under his eyes. He hasn't been sleeping since they arrived, she knows, and he's slept poorly since they left Highgarden for King's Landing, so it only makes sense that he be exhausted, even without how badly his leg has been paining him this past week or so. "We'll be home soon, sweetling."

She doesn't dare say that part of why she is so eager to return to Highgarden is because it will mean she is far away from Prince Aegon, not when he is only two people away, so she smiles and squeezes his hand and tries not to worry too much.

It is hard not to worry, though, when the music begins and Prince Aegon nearly knocks over his chair to ask her to lead the dancing with him.

* * *

Willas is tired and in more pain than he can remember being in since the morning after his and Sansa's wedding and now he has to watch that bloody fool Targaryen dance Sansa around the floor and try not to stew in his own jealousy, because he is far too old to be jealous of a twit like Aegon damned Targaryen-

"Your leg is troubling you, my lord?"

Tyene has taken Sansa's seat without his noticing, probably because he's concentrating very hard on not letting the pain of his leg show, and she looks as sweet as ever.

"Some," he says dismissively, waving his hand as though it is nothing. "You are well, my lady?"

"Well enough," she says, examining her nails with a smile. "Sad to see you leave on the morrow, of course."

He snorts derisively, too sore to bother with Tyene's games.

"What do you want, Tyene?"

"Your wife has once more entranced my cousin," she says, looking pointedly out onto the floor just as Aegon swoops Sansa into a dip, deeper than necessary, before spinning her rapidly back into the dance. Willas grits his teeth to force back a wave of envy – he was a damned good dancer before he was crippled – and nods for Tyene to continue. "Mayhaps keep better control over her."

"I never dreamed that I would hear a Dornishwoman asking a man to control his wife. It's rather contrary to your ways, I would have thought?"

Tyene's smile is as venomous as Oberyn's ever was.

"A throne rarely sits in the balance of such things, my lord," she says sweetly. "Mayhaps it would be best if she were to remain at Highgarden when you and Ser Garlan return to us after your youngest brother's funeral."

"I can't imagine his highness would be pleased to hear you making such a suggestion, Lady Tyene," he murmurs, raising one eyebrow and sipping his wine.

"It is not in the best interests of House Martell for Aegon to be so transfixed on Lady Sansa."

"Ah," Willas says. "Arianne is to be his wife, then, and you fear another Stark tearing another Targaryen away from another Martell. I understand. You need not worry, my lady – unless the prince shows the same proclivity for kidnap as his most noble father, my wife will not be a danger to your cousin's future."

"Lyanna Stark-"

"Was fifteen," Willas says quietly. "I am as old as you are, Tyene – do not play games with me. All stories come to the High Tower in time, and the story of Rhaegar's descent into elegant madness following Harrenhall came to us the same as any other."

"Your sister is but six-and-ten and by all reports there is not a finer seductress in the realm," Tyene sniffs, and Willas knows he has hit upon a sore spot – perhaps this is not the wisest company in which to defend Sansa's aunt. "Age-"

"Have you ever met a Stark before my wife, Tyene?" he asks, cutting her off before she insults Margaery too thoroughly. "I had not either, but my uncle and my grandfather have met more than one over the years and they all agree that they are an honourable family, by and large – prone to bouts of recklessness, mayhaps, and wild in unexpected sort of ways, but not the sort of run away from a betrothal to a very powerful man with a married man."

"What you are saying-"

"Is idle speculation that the prince does not need to hear," Willas says lightly, biting the inside of his cheek when he shifts in his seat and his leg moves. "But I merely ask that you consider such speculative nonsense, tripe though it probably is, before you accuse my wife of playing seductress for Prince Aegon."

Tyene eyes him thoughtfully, and then her smile fades, becomes something different and, he thinks, realer.

"My father always had a very high opinion of you," she says. "He thought you were intelligent and witty, and he liked how much you openly dislike most people, but he sometimes wondered if you'd ever find a wife who measured up to your high standards. He would have been happy to know that you have, my lord."

"And I intend to hold onto her," he says, not disabusing Tyene of the notion that it is because he was picky that it took him so long to wed. Gods, I am only four-and-twenty, surely it has not been a subject of gossip as to why I did not wed sooner? Father was near twenty-six when he and Mother married! "I am rather fond of her, Tyene."

"Yes," Tyene says, sounding distantly surprised. "You are, aren't you?"

* * *

Aegon's hand is too warm on her back, and he is holding her a great deal too close, but he is very strong and she cannot move back.

"Your husband cannot dance, I assume?"

"No, your highness," she says cautiously, not sure why he is asking – he has only ever mentioned Willas to her in order to portray himself as a better choice, and she is nervous of him now. "He cannot."

"A pity," Aegon says, "for you are a very lovely dancer, my lady."

"Thank you, your highness."

"Tell me, Lady Stark – what hold is it Lord Tyrell has over you that you are so set on remaining his wife? He is a cripple many years your senior, and his family are allied with those who destroyed yours-"

"House Targaryen would have destroyed House Stark many years ago, before I was even born, your highness. House Tyrell have never acted against House Stark."

"I could make you a queen, Sansa," he says seriously, pulling her closer still and frowning when she tenses in his arms because no, she will not have this happen again, she won't. "Queen of the Seven Kingdoms."

"I have no desire to be queen," she says breathlessly, feeling sick because she is trapped here between his arm and his chest and she can't breathe-

"Surely every girl dreams of being queen."

"I did," Sansa whispers, turning away, turning to look for Willas, wanting to catch his eye so he'll smile and she can have something safe to concentrate on. "And I saw that it was a nightmare in truth."

"I am not the Kingslayer's bastard, Lady Stark."

"I am Lady Tyrell," she says, pushing away from him. "And I will remain so, your highness."

Willas stands up when she darts back to her seat, and even though his face twists with pain when he does so she can see how worried he is for her in the way he lifts a hand to her face, the way he so gently tucks her hair behind her ear, the way he refuses to sit down until she catches her breath and sits with him.

"Sansa-"

"I am well," she assures him, forcing a smile that she knows does not convince him, but it is either that or admit to being scared and Sansa will never do that again.

* * *

Garlan has to practically carry him up the stairs, because his leg can't bear his weight at all, but Prince Aegon's voice rings out sharply when they're just on the first landing and Willas swears violently under his breath until the prince catches them up.

"Your highness," he grits out, holding back his temper by sheer force of will, "what may we do for you?"

"I am told my cousin approached you about your wife's behaviour towards me?"

Garlan's grip on Willas tightens forcibly.

"My wife has done her best to avoid you, your highness, but yes, Lady Tyene did speak to me about your interactions with my wife. I was… Surprised, I admit."

"I apologise," Aegon says. "She had no right to discuss such a thing with you."

"Just as you have no right to discuss marrying my wife, you mean?"

Aegon's jaw tightens, eyes of Targaryen purple but the shape of Oberyn's flashing dark with anger.

"A king needs a queen, Lord Tyrell."

"Find one, then," Willas says, disentangling himself from Garlan and ignoring the screaming pain in his leg. "Sansa has a husband, Prince Aegon, and she does not need another."

"One who can stand up may be preferable-"

Willas is holding Aegon by the front of his doublet, pulling him up so their faces are level, but he doesn't remember moving. His whole leg is shaking with the effort of holding him up, but he is so angry, so very, very angry, that he doesn't care.

"If you were to ask Sansa," Willas snarls, "she would choose to stay with me. She would choose to remain as my wife, as Sansa Tyrell. She has no interest in becoming Sansa Targaryen because she does not want you, your highness. It may be time to consider that such a thing is possible. If ever you lay a hand on my wife again, rightful king or no, I will see your end."

"Is that a threat, Lord Tyrell?"

"No, Prince Aegon. It is a promise."

He shoves Aegon away, all but falling back against Garlan as Jon Connington and a handful of Dornishmen begin climbing the stairs towards them.

"Goodnight, your highness," he forces out, just loud enough for the other men to hear. "Pleasant dreams."

* * *

His leg is a terror when he manages to get out of his breeches, his brace a good deal too tight and the skin a horrible reddish-purple colour, shiny and taut over the swelling.

Sansa stands at the side of the bed, holding his head to her breast as he gasps for breath and tries not to cry with the pain of it.

"I'm sorry," he manages to force out, gritting his teeth and shifting back properly onto the bed, motioning for her to join him. "I'm so sorry, sweetling-"

"Don't be," she says soothingly, quickly slipping off her gown as he struggles out of his doublet and shirt, trying to shift his weight as little as possible with little success. "Is there anything at all I might do to help? Anything at all?"

He leans into her arms when she opens them to him, buries his face in the curve of her neck, rubbing his cheek against the soft lambswool of her nightgown, trying to lose himself in the sharp scent of her (he's found her secret, the rosemary oil she combs into her hair every morning), and she coos softly and runs her fingers through his hair, settling back against the pillows.

"Leonette and I heard you speaking with Prince Aegon," she says softly, hesitantly. "What were you talking about?"

"You. I'm afraid I lost my temper, sweetling. I do apologise. He mentioned you and needing a queen in the same breath, and I-"

"Don't let him take me," she breathes, "please, Willas, please don't let him take me-"

Her arms are tight around him, tight and terrified and trembling, and he holds her just as close, glad of the distraction from his leg, however brief it may be.

"I will never let him or anyone else take you, little wolf," he vows. "You are my wife, and nothing will change that. I will not allow anything to change that."

* * *

"Of course it's pissing down," Aldwin sighs as he hefts Willas up into his saddle the next morning, "bloody Stormlands living up to their name."

It took both Aldwin and Garlan to get Willas down the stairs this morning, and even then he bit the insides of his cheeks bloody to keep from crying out in pain. Sansa's eyes are nearly glowing with worry in the deep shadow of her hood, and Willas can't remember when last Garlan looked so concerned.

"We expect your return within the month," Aegon says as Aldwin helps Willas strap his leg in place (gods, oh gods, how am I to last to Highgarden like this, I'll barely last today like this). "That gives you time to reach Highgarden, attend your brother's funeral, and return here."

"If we spend only a night or two at Highgarden," Willas gasps, eyes snapping shut as Aldwin pulls the strap over his knee tight. "We may not be back within the month, your highness, but we have sworn House Tyrell to your cause and we will not renege on that."

"Within the month, Lord Tyrell."

Willas grits his teeth, hating that he has to admit this in public, but…

"My health won't allow for us to return within the month, your highness," he growls. "My leg, it will not allow me to leave Highgarden for some time. Our loyalty is not in question, surely?"

Lord Connington's hand on Aegon's shoulder quells the prince, it seems.

"Send word before you plan on returning," Connington says. "We will be ready for you."

* * *

They're barely three hours from Storm's End but Willas is slumped forward over Gardener's neck, begging that they stop if only for a few minutes.

They stop, but he waves Aldwin away when he moves to unbuckle him. Sansa slides down from Whisper's back and slops through the muck to his side, touching his face, wiping away the tears on his cheeks before Garlan and Leonette can see them.

"I don't- I can't- Sansa, I-"

"Ssh, love," she soothes him, slipping her hand back into his hair and scratching at his head the way he likes, "ssh, you mustn't worry. We will get you home, you'll see."

"It hurts," he gulps, and he sounds so wretched that she moves closer, slides her arms around him as best she can with him still clinging to Gardener. He presses his face into her shoulder (he can't have a mistress, he can't, not when he relies on her like this, because whether he'd admit it or not he does rely on her) and wraps one arm around her, pulling her closer.

"We'll be home soon," she whispers, beckoning Marian with the flask of poppy's milk. "If we bind you in place, will you take the poppy's milk? It will make travelling easier for you."

"And slower," he argues, voice muffled in her hair. "I just need to rest, I just need to stop a few minutes, I'll be fine in a moment-"

"You're far from fine," Aldwin says sternly, already starting to tie Willas' other leg in place. "Now you do as milady Sansa tells you like a good husband, and you take your poppy's milk and have a nice snooze. We'll wake you when we reach the inn, don't you worry, and then you'll have a nice hot bath and maybe there'll be a maester, eh?"

Willas slumps entirely only moments after taking the poppy's milk, and Sansa pulls Aldwin aside to ask something that's been worrying her for some days now.

"He's getting worse, isn't he?"

Aldwin hesitates, but then he runs a hand through his hair, pushing his hood back in the process, and turns his face up to the rain.

"I've been with Willas Tyrell since he were a babe, milady," he says at last. "I was there'n he broke his leg in that godsforsaken tilt because he thought he had to prove himself to his father, and I was with him the whole time he was kept in a wagon the way to Oldtown, and I stayed with him till the maesters let him out of the infirmary in the Citadel. I've been his shadow for near twenty-five years, milady, and he's been a cripple for nine of those."

He tips his head down, and his eyes are sad.

"Aye," he says. "Milord is getting worse, alright."

* * *

When Willas wakes, he is lying on a very soft bed in just his smallclothes, and his hair is wet.

There are bandages wrapped around his bad leg, from near his hip, he thinks, to halfway down his calf.

"Aldwin?" he calls, feeling pathetic, and pushes himself up.

Sansa comes instead, hurrying from the other side of the bath screen with her robe only half-tied and her hair soaking through the wool.

"Are you in pain? Are you well?"

He considers this for a moment.

"I don't know," he admits. "How long did I sleep?"

"Only a few hours," she assures him. "We were forced to stop sooner than planned because of the weather."

She sits beside him on the bed, hands folded in her lap once she ties her robe properly, and then she looks up at him.

"Aldwin says you're getting worse."

He sighs.

"He's right," he admits. "For the past year or so, my leg has been flaring up far more often. Maester Lomys worries that… That I may be confined to my wheelchair sooner than we thought."

"That would not be so terrible," she says, shivering slightly. "You manage well enough in your chair-"

"He also thinks there is a chance I may lose my leg."


	16. Chapter 16

It takes them near three weeks to reach Highgarden because Willas is in too much pain for them to ride any harder. His only comfort, Sansa knows, is bathing, because the warm water eases the ache enough to let him sleep, but riding every day in the cold and the rain is agony for him.

"You, boy," Aldwin shouts when finally the walls of Highgarden come into view, pale and bright in the dimming light, "ride ahead and have Lord Willas' wheelchair waiting for him – if it's not waiting, you'll be looking for other work, y'hear?"

"Don't be cruel, Aldwin," Willas gasps, waving a weak hand and forcing a smile that's near a grimace. "You've terrified the poor lad."

Willas isn't quite slumped over Gardener's neck, but he's only barely upright – between the pain and exhaustion, he's hunched in on himself, head down and shoulders forward. His knuckles are white on the reins, too, and when he thinks none of them are looking his face folds into a scowl – Sansa doesn't understand how he's bearing the pain at this stage.

She keeps as close to his right side as she can, touching his shoulder and his hand whenever his strength seems to falter – when Gardener slips on the wet road and Willas' leg jars, he bites down so viciously on his lip that he breaks the skin, and Sansa quickly offers him her wet handkerchief (they're all wet through, right down to their skins) before Garlan or Leonette or Aldwin notice – but he seems embarrassed if she's too obvious about it, so she tries to hold back her concern.

Lady Alerie comes running down the steps just as Sansa slides down from her saddle, and there's a manic few moments as everyone all at once tries to unbuckle Willas' leg – he swats everyone except Sansa and Aldwin away, though, and twists his hand into Sansa's hair and breathes heavily through his nose as she carefully works the strap around his knee loose.

"I can walk up the steps," he grits out, swinging his good leg over Gardener's neck and holding out a hand to Aldwin for his cane. "I can – Mother, stop that at once," he snaps, waving Lady Alerie away when she comes forward with her hands out. "I may be an invalid, but I do have some pride-"

"Too bloody much," Garlan says furiously, gently lifting their mother bodily and setting her down so that he can get at Willas. "You're not going to be able to get to the steps, never mind up them, so you put a lid on that foolishness and accept a hand-"

"So help me, Garlan-"

"Do as you're told," Sansa says suddenly, because he's so frail looking, and she's seen him in bed, in just his smallclothes, and while his bad leg is swollen and angry looking, the rest of him is pale and his skin is clammy to the touch and his ribs are showing because he can barely eat at all because the pain is turning his stomach. "Let Garlan and Aldwin help you, and-"

"Sansa-"

"Do it!" she snaps, fists clenching. "You're so ill, Willas, please, let them help you!"

He seems as shocked as anyone, and if there's hurt in his eyes, well, it's for his own good, but he does let Garlan take most of his weight when he dismounts, and when he cries out in pain as his knee buckles, he doesn't protest to Aldwin slipping under his other arm, doesn't protest when Garlan and Aldwin lift him clean off the ground and rush him up the steps to the keep.

"Thank you, Sansa," Lady Alerie sighs as they gather their skirts and run up after the men. "The gods know he never listens to any of us."

Sansa only smiles before darting ahead of her goodmother, getting inside just as Garlan and Aldwin ease Willas down into his wheelchair – which seems only to cause him more pain.

"Make sure there is a warm bath waiting for Lord Willas when he reaches our rooms," Sansa orders a passing servant. "Warm, not hot, and no oils or scents in it – not even a twist of rose oil."

"Yes, my lady," the girl says, curtsying quickly and dashing off, leaving Sansa to return her attention to her husband (she is still not used to that, still not used to saying my husband and not having to be afraid, because from the moment Joffrey ordered Ilyn Payn to take Father's head Sansa had lived in fear of the day they married, of the day she had a husband, but Willas is so far from Joffrey that she has come to savour the word husband, has come to see it as her salvation, her safety).

"Maester Lomys," he gasps out, head back and eyes wide as he tries to force away tears, and he looks so young, so much younger than when he's behaving as the lord his father is only on rare occasions, the worry and concern erased from his face to be replaced by pain and fear. "Get me to- bring me to Maester Lomys, quickly-"

Sansa makes to follow when Garlan begins pushing Willas towards the maester's rooms, but Willas waves for Garlan to stop and takes her hand.

"You don't want to see this, love," he says, breathing heavily through his nose again, eyes bright with tears of pain that she knows he will do his best not to shed. "Please, Sansa – go… Go bathe, and get something to eat. I don't- I don't want you to see me this way."

"But-"

"Sansa, please," he pleads, and he is- he is ashamed! But how can he feel that way? She is his wife! "Just… You'll catch a chill in those wet things. Go, love – I have Garlan with me. I will be fine."

She stands and watches Garlan wheel Willas away, her hands in fists again, and it's not until Leonette takes her by the hand and begins to pull her away that Sansa's temper fades enough for her to move.

She is his wife. He should trust her with his everything, surely?

* * *

He remains horribly, painfully alert throughout the draining, throughout Maester Lomys' and Father's lectures, throughout Garlan's reprimands for his treatment of Sansa, throughout Aldwin's chastisement for the way he spoke to Mother, and really he wishes they'd all bugger off and take his leg with them, because it hurts so horribly and he'd really just like to have done with it.

It takes hours – and he knows that this isn't just the pain blurring the passage of time, because Garlan has ample time to go and bathe and eat and come back, and they have time to tell Father nearly every word Prince Aegon said while they were at Storm's End.

"The Martells are setting Arianne up to be his queen," Willas says, trying to straighten up in his seat and giving in when pain shoots up his thigh from his knee. "Aegon was… Rather taken with Sansa, though. He…"

"He was an immaculate host aside from his behaviour towards Sansa," Garlan summarises, and Willas is thankful that his brother feels no need to share with Father the fact that Willas threatened the prince. "He will be a decent king, I think – he is not a bad man, at least – but he has been spoiled. He's not used to being told no, which is a habit we shall have to watch for."

Willas manages a smile when Father passes him a clean linen to put between the uppermost cut on the back of his leg and his chair, but it is a harsh thing, barely a smile at all, he can tell that himself and he feels bad for it, because Father is trying, and Willas wishes he were in the humour to try harder himself. "He's certainly intelligent enough, and he's shrewd, too, I think – Grandmother will like him. Garlan's right, though – he's got a good mind, but he's a brat."

"A brat in need of a queen," Father says thoughtfully, folding his hands over his belly and sitting back. "Margaery's marriage to Tommen is a farce at best – do you think-"

"No," Garlan says firmly. "We tried to raise the issue, but… No. Like it or not, Father, Tommen is Margaery's husband. She says he's a good boy, a nice child – how many men will be willing to take a woman thrice wed, twice widowed? Maybe a good boy is the best we can hope for in a husband for Margaery."

"Your grandson will not sit the Iron Throne, Father," Willas says quietly. "The Martells have a greater claim on Aegon, and they are making use of it – Margaery will not be queen for long."

Father's frown deepens, and Willas once more tries to straighten up in his chair – he hates how hard it is to keep his balance with only one foot on the floor – before reluctantly reaching for the beaker of poppy's milk Maester Lomys left for him.

"I need to sleep," he says at last. "I- Tomorrow, Father. Might we talk about this in more detail tomorrow?"

Father's frown changes now, and Willas can see the concern there that just a few months ago he would have dismissed. "Aye, we can wait till morning – do you need help…?"

"Garlan is enough," Willas assures him, setting down the beaker and instead taking up the long roll of linen bandages sitting on the table at his side. "Thank you, though."

Things are still – not precisely awkward, but there is still a tension between himself and Father, and…

"We buried Loras last week," Father says softly just before he leaves the room. "We could not… We could not wait any longer."

Willas freezes.

"But I should have been there to turn the sod," he says dumbly, not certain how to process this. "I am his eldest brother, I was supposed to-"

"I know," Father says. "But… Mayhaps you should both be thankful that you did not see him. Even Margaery could not see… It was best you did not see him."

"May we see where he was laid tomorrow?" Garlan asks, hand tight on Willas' shoulder, because he seems to understand that Willas cannot speak the words himself. "May we, Father?"

"I will bring you myself," Father promises. "Margaery, foolish girl, she thought to send Loras to Storm's End. I put a stop to that talk before your mother heard, of course, but to think that she believed…"

He shakes his head and bids them goodnight, and Willas finds himself laughing.

"What a mess we are," he says, and there are tears on his face but he has neither the inclination nor the energy to pay them any heed. "Me, a wreck who can hardly move without needing a maester, Loras dead and the subject of so many rumours that it's a wonder Mother hasn't heard them, and Margaery being called a curse on any man she marries. Gods above, Garlan, all the hopes of House Tyrell are on your shoulders, little brother."

"Grandmother is already despairing, I suspect," Garlan says wryly, but his own eyes are shining and Willas can't help but wonder how he'd manage without his brother. "Come, you've not changed out of your travelling clothes – well and good telling Sansa she'll catch a chill, but you're in worse shape than her at the moment, I dare say. Let's get you to your rooms, eh?"

It takes a lot more painful moving and fiddling than Willas would like to get him into his wheelchair, but Garlan calmly bears Willas' weight and then, when Willas strength seems to fail him, Garlan pushes him along without a word.

"I should have been the one to turn the sod," Willas says. "Gods, Garlan, how can Loras be dead? He is- he was, gods, he was so alive."

"You didn't see how he was after Renly was killed," Garlan confides. "Margaery and the rest refused to see it, but there was something wrong. Something broken. I can only imagine how he felt – if someone killed Leonette, I wouldn't be able to rest until I'd killed them, and even then I don't know how I'd cope without her."

"I never even thought of that."

And it's true, he didn't, but now that Garlan has said it Willas realises that he can't even begin to imagine what he'd do if something happened to Sansa.

"I think he's probably happier now, Willas," Garlan says quietly. "I hope they're together, at least – there's bound to be one of the heavens where they won't be regarded as they would have been here had everyone known the truth."

Willas' rooms – his and Sansa's rooms, he reminds himself – are empty when Garlan pushes him in, except for a serving girl tipping a final lot of hot water into his bathtub.

"Unscented water?" Garlan asks in surprise. "Who ordered this?"

"Lady Sansa, milord," the girl says, lifting her head just slightly. "She ordered that we not even put a twist of rose oil into the bathwater. Everyone gets a twist of rose oil in their bathwater, though."

"You didn't add the oil?" Willas asks, just as surprised as Garlan that such an order was followed, but not at all surprised that Sansa was the one to issue it. He makes a note to thank her, because treated water stings so badly after he's had his leg drained that it almost doubles the pain. "Not even a twist of rose oil?"

"Well, no, milord," the girl says uneasily. "Marian said we was to do exactly as Lady Sansa says, so-"

"Thank you," he says, waving for her to go. "That will be all."

"Yes, milord," she says, relief clear on her face as she bobs an excuse for a curtsy and scurries away, closing the door behind her.

"Clever Sansa," Garlan says approvingly, dipping his fingers into the water to test it. "Not too hot, either – she knows you well, brother. Do you need help getting in?"

"You should go to Leonette," Willas says. "Thank you, though – send for Aldwin on your way out, please?"

He sits and thinks in silence when Garlan leaves, wishing his leg wasn't ruined, wishing Loras wasn't dead, wishing they didn't have to broker accord after accord with king after king, and then he sighs and begins to peel his damp, clinging clothes off, swearing aloud when he can't quite manage to get his left boot off, because taking it off would involve moving his leg and he can't bring himself to do that.

Aldwin appears before he can truly lose his temper, and soon enough he's sinking down into blessedly hot, blessedly clear water.

"Anything else, milord?"

"Nothing, thank you," Willas sighs, sliding deeper into the water, tipping his head back over the rim of the tub. "Is my lady nearby, Aldwin? I feel I may owe her an apology for how I spoke to her earlier-"

"And your mother, too," Aldwin says mildly as he gathers up Willas' wet things and lays out dry. "And mayhaps your brother and Lady Leonette."

"I- what? Why?!"

"I know you've been sore, milord," Aldwin calls, "but you've been a rude bastard this past month and the ladies and milord Garlan bore the brunt of that."

Garlan's well used to handling Willas' temper by now, and Leonette as well, but Sansa, his Sansa, who still flinches if he raised his voice even in jest with Garlan while she is in the room, who spends every night locked in terrible nightmares?

He feels half-sick with regret by the time Aldwin returns to help him out of the bath (although the nausea may be because of the pain in his leg, which makes his head spin when Aldwin carefully unwinds the bandages to replace them with fresh, dry bandages treated in Maester Lomys' poultice).

* * *

His dinner arrives with Sansa, who is dressed in a clean gown of pale blue wool edged with cream, her hair hanging in a heavy braid over her left shoulder. She looks lovely, he thinks, hating that Maester Lomys sent orders that he is to remain abed for at least as long as it takes for the swelling in his leg to go down.

"Father still hopes to marry Marg to Aegon," he says lightly, patting the bed beside him as the maid pulls the door closed. "He seems quite willing to ignore that she is already married, of course, and that the betrothal between Prince Aegon and Princess Arianne is all but settled, but Father has his little foibles, I suppose."

"He was very worried for you," she says, sitting up on her heels and clenching her fists in her lap. She's stopped wearing her butterfly ring, he notices, instead wears the same slender ring of golden roses as Mother and Grandmother wear (it is shaped just precisely so a second ring, this one gold and emeralds, can fit against it on the birth of their first son), on the same finger as he wears his signet. It fits her hand better than her butterfly, he thinks, which always seemed too large for her slim fingers, but he wonders if mayhaps she feels obliged to wear it, feels as though she can't wear her other jewellery – not that she has much aside from that which he has given her, but he doesn't want her to feel as though she has to do anything. "We all were. We all are."

"I will be fine," he says dismissively, waving aside her concern before lifting the cover on his plate. "Ah, venison. Lord Tarly must be about – there is always fresh venison when he is nearby."

"Willas, please," Sansa says, and when he looks to her she is biting her lip. "Why did you not tell me how much pain you were in, before? Garlan says-"

"My brother says a great many things about my health, and only half of them are true," Willas cuts across her, annoyed with Garlan for discussing him behind his back, even with Sansa. "He worries too much, Sansa, you know that – surely you do not consider me as much an invalid as my family do?"

"Nobody considers you an invalid, Willas," she tells him firmly, frowning when he scoffs because gods, has she been living with him at all these past moons since they wed? Grandmother considers him an invalid, never mind Garlan. "We worry, though, because you are pushing yourself too hard."

"I can manage-"

"You can hardly move!"

"I can manage, Sansa," he says sharply, surprised by this sudden anger from her. "I am well enough-"

"You would not admit when your leg was paining you while we were at Storm's End, which meant you did not get to rest it as you should have – your pride would not allow you to admit to Prince Aegon that you have a weakness-"

"What has caused this?" he demands, and her shoulders snap straight at his question. "Gods above, Sansa, I did not want to worry you!"

"And this isn't worrying me? You were so ill on the journey home, Willas!"

"I will be well soon enough," he says, and for the first time in their marriage he thinks he might be truly angry with her. "I did not need bedrest while we were at Storm's End, and I will be well in a few days-"

"You would not be in the state you are in now had you rested-"

"I am not a child to be ordered to bed!"

She leans away from him, something he doesn't quite recognise in her lovely eyes, and gods, gods but he is so angry with her for seeing him as weak, just as everyone else does – he thought she knew better than that, thought-

"You are behaving as a child," she says tightly. "You are conducting yourself shamefully, illness and grief aside – we are trying to help you, Willas. You told me you do not want to lose your leg, but if you continue to behave as you are now, if you continue to ignore the maester's advice and the fact that you do not have two fully functioning legs-"

"I am well enough-"

"You are not!"

"Damn it, Sansa, you are my wife, not my master!" he shouts, and her fingers spasm and her mouth goes tight. "I will not be lectured-"

"I only wish to help-"

"If this is the help you offer, then it is unwanted," he says acidly. "I will not be treated this way, Sansa-"

"I do not understand why you are so angry! You are unwell, Willas, you do sometimes need help!"

"Gods damn it all, Sansa, stop this!" he snaps, throwing up his hands-

And she flinches away from him.

"Sansa," he says, straining after her as she scrambles away from him. "Sansa, wait, I'm sorry, I am so, so sorry, love, please-"

"It may interest you to know," she says, hands so tight on the doorframe that her arms are trembling, "that I am not with child, so your expertise with moon tea will be unneeded."

He completely forgot about their worries, about everything, between Loras and the hell of the journey home and making sure they told Father everything-

She's gone before he can say a word, the echo of her boots clicking on the floor ringing back into their bedchamber, and he cannot be sure if he hates himself for being so stupid as to frighten her that way, or if he hates that she is just like everyone else, hates that she sees him as a weak invalid, just as he feared she would when first they were wed.

He throws his tray across the room, watches the shattered porcelain hit the floor, the food sliding down the wall, and decides that yes, he hates himself. No matter how foul his mood, after everything Sansa went through at the Lannisters hands…

"What have I done?"


	17. Chapter 17

Sansa runs and runs and runs, and she feels a fool for doing it in a faraway corner of her mind, but Willas raising his hand frightened her so terribly, because she thought he was different, thought she was safe, but he is just like the rest, and she presses a hand to her mouth to try and stifle a sob as she bursts past Garlan and Leonette and runs out of the keep, not caring about the icy-cold rain and that she has no cloak because this cannot happen again.

* * *

"I lost my temper," Willas says desperately, pulling on his right boot and reaching for the left, which Garlan is holding too high for him to reach. "Damn it all, Garlan-"

"What did you say to her?" Garlan asks. "Gods, Willas, she looked terrified-"

"I shouted at her," he admits. "I didn't mean it, I swear I didn't, but I shouted and I sort of did this-" he throws his hands up again, as if in frustration, "-but I think she thought I was going to strike her, and she ran. Please, Garlan, give me my boot, I have to go after her-"

"How are you going to get a wheelchair down the steps?" Leonette points out, digging out fresh clothes for Sansa. "I'll go for her-"

"No," Garlan says. "You find Mother, tell her what's happened, tell Maester Lomys that Willas was fool enough to get out of bed not two hours after having his leg drained – I will go for Sansa. Bring clean things for her to our rooms – might she sleep with you tonight, sweetling?"

"I did not mean it, Garlan," Willas says wretchedly as Leonette disappears out the door, Sansa's things over her arm. "I swear I didn't, you know I'd never raise a hand to her-"

"Except you did," Garlan says. "You know what she went through in King's Landing, and you raised your hands in anger. What did you expect her to do, Willas?"

"I-"

Garlan's hand whips across his face before he can form a full thought, never mind a full sentence, and the sting of the blow is enough to stun him. He's just thankful that Garlan slapped him instead of thumping him, because he's seen half-hearted blows from Garlan's fists break men's noses.

"Allow me to attempt to salvage your marriage, brother," Garlan says, and Willas realises for the first time just how angry his brother is. "But first, permit me to offer you some advice – when a woman who was scared out of caring a damn for anything but her own survival worries for you, do try and not be a complete bastard about it, hmm?"

* * *

It is so, so cold in the gardens, and dark and wet, too, but Sansa does not care because it's away from Willas' anger, something she never thought to see directed at herself-

"Sansa? Sansa, where are you?"

She looks up when Garlan appears at the end of the avenue (it can only be Garlan, even though she cannot see his face under his hood, because he's the tallest man in Highgarden, and besides, who else would come looking for her and not call her Lady Sansa?).

"Here," she calls, hating that her voice is thick with tears. "Here, ser."

He ducks under the overhanging amaryllis and sits down beside her, wrapping a cloak (Willas' cloak, it smells faintly of saddle leather and is much too big on her) around her shoulders and tugging the hood up over her sodden hair.

"Now then," he says softly, folding his arms and leaning back against the trellis behind them, and she wonders why he is not putting his arm around her shoulders as he often does when they are talking together. "Tell me what happened to frighten you so much."

"It was nothing," she says carefully. "I overreacted-"

"What my idiot brother did was wrong, Sansa," Garlan says. "You have nothing to apologise for, and you certainly did not overreact. Now, tell me what happened, little sister."

So she tells him – tells him that she was worried for Willas, that she tried to make him see that he does not need to be so stubborn, that she'd rather he was not if it meant his health would be better, "Because he's so ill, Garlan, he's feverish half the time with the strain, and he can hardly eat much beyond a few spoonfuls of broth or stew, and I worry!"

"And if he weren't in such a foul humour, he would appreciate that," Garlan assures her. "He did not mean to scare you, Sansa, you do know that, don't you?"

She nods miserably and lets Garlan help her to her feet, huddling against his side because she is freezing.

"He does not confide in me, though," she blurts out, unable to stop herself. "He does not turn to me for comfort as he should, and I worry that- does he have a mistress, Garlan? Or a lover? Does he love another woman?"

Garlan hesitates, she can see that this worries him, and then he sighs.

"Do you promise not to tell Willas that I shared this with you?"

"Of course!"

"He confided in me, after I teased him for it, that he has been with no woman but you since he returned from the High Tower almost three years ago."

Sansa can feel her eyes go wide, and Garlan smiles slightly before guiding her under the cloister that lines the southern wall of the keep, steering her towards the Kitchen Door.

"He has no mistress, Sansa," he promises her. "I'd kill him on your behalf if I thought he did – we were raised better than that."

* * *

Mother shouts magnificently, her voice loud enough to rival the Old Man's, but her fury burns out quickly and then she sits with him, running her fingers through his hair as he bites down on his knuckles and tries not to cry out while Maester Lomys pokes and prods at his leg to ensure that he hasn't done any harm.

"Foolish boy," she sighs when they are alone once more. "Do you not see how skittish Sansa still is, even with you? Whatever the Lannisters did to her broke her, Willas, and while you have gone some way towards healing her, this could break her all over again-"

"I did not mean to frighten her, Mother!"

"I know, sweetling, I do know that, but you have to understand that you did. That is the important thing here."

"I just- I hate that she has to see how useless I am, Mother. I hate that everyone sees me that way."

"I do not," Mother says. "Garlan, your father, Margaery, your uncles and your grandfather – your grandmother may think you've served your purpose in her schemes now by marrying Sansa, but none of us have ever seen you as useless, silly boy."

Willas huffs sceptically, but Mother grabs his chin and turns him to face her properly.

"There are more sorts of worth than being able to swing a sword and ride a joust," Mother says sternly, looking very like Baelor. "Now stop this silliness – it will help neither yourself nor your wife."

There is a knock at the door, and when Leonette pops her head around immediately after she is frowning just slightly, and Willas can practically smell her disapproval.

"Sansa will stay with us tonight," she says, "but she would like to break her fast with you in the morning, my lord."

* * *

Sansa is exhausted the following morning – Leonette gave her the use of her bed, and being alone (or, more specifically, being without Willas) left her with the most horrible nightmares she has had in a long time (since starting to share a bed with Willas, almost).

She takes her time preparing for the morning meal, carefully combing her hair over her shoulder just as Willas likes, wearing the deep green gown he likes best, sliding on her wedding ring, the ring that names her a Tyrell (Sansa has her suspicions that Leonette will soon be wearing the complimentary emerald ring, and wonders if Willas would not have been so angry with her had she given him cause to give her the same ring, if she was carrying his heir, their child, a babe with his lovely eyes and her hair, because he does love her hair).

She ignores the way her hands shake as she makes her way down the stairs to her and Willas' rooms, having thanked Garlan and Leonette for allowing her to invade their privacy as they did and accepting their assurances that Willas did not mean it, that it was an isolated incident never to be repeated, and Marian pats her shoulder before opening the door for her.

"Aldwin'll make sure milord behaves, milady," Marian promises, and she is both Old Nan and Septa Mordane at once and Sansa almost weeps she misses Winterfell so much. "Don't you worry about that."

Willas is in his wheelchair, sitting under the single clear glass window of their solar – the west wall has three windows, but the outer two are stained glass, and all three look out over one of the pocket gardens that are tucked into various little alcoves around Highgarden. The early sunlight is pale gold and picks out the bronze and copper in his dark hair, the green in his eyes, and he looks so ashamed when he turns to face her that she almost believes Garlan and Leonette's promises.

"Sansa," he breathes, as if surprised that she is here, even though she sent word that she would break her fast with him, and then he carefully wheels himself across the room to greet her. She hears Marian and Aldwin depart just as Willas reaches her, just as he halts at her side (closer than he could get if he stayed directly in front of her).

"My lord," she says quietly, not meeting his eyes but still able to see his flinch at the formal address – she curses herself for not remembering that he prefers to be called by his name, at least in private, and takes a seat when he gestures to the table behind him.

"Will you eat with me, my lady?" he asks, sounding almost defeated, and she wonders what she is doing wrong now, she is not fussing over him, she is not implying that he is weak (although she had never meant to do that, he is so strong that she sometimes wonders how he can stand to be so strong all of the time without breaking, but she is grateful that he does not break often if last night is a hint of what lies behind his strength). "There are strawberries – I know how you like them. They may be some of the last fresh we have, if winter has truly come."

"This is not winter," Sansa says automatically, reflexively rising to the hint of her words (but no, no, she must remember that she is a Tyrell now, not a Stark, though part of her still longs for Winterfell). The rain has cleared, and while it is still quite cool, she would hardly have worn a cloak at Winterfell if the weather was like this – why, it did not even freeze overnight.

"Pardon my being a thin-blooded southerner," he teases gently, but she cannot quite shake the fear that if she does not behave as he wishes, he will raise his hand again, so she must be perfect, must be sweet and good and gentle, everything Septa Mordane trained her to be, but she must be clever, too, because Willas grows bored if their conversation is not clever, and if he is bored he might lose his temper again. I was free, she thinks, or at least, I thought I was.

His fingers under her chin startle her, gentle and warm, and that shame is there in his eyes again when she tentatively looks up at him.

"Sansa," he says uncertainly, and it aches to see him as unsure of her as he was in the very early days of their marriage. "Sansa, I would never hurt you, you do know that, don't you?"

"Of course, my lord," she says, pulling back just slightly, but it is enough of a hint and he drops his hand, something almost like despair in his lovely soft eyes.

"Sansa," he says again, "I am sorry."

And it costs him dearly to say the words, she knows that, he is so fiercely proud, this husband of hers (he said them twice last night, too), but she is not entirely sure she can trust him, not after him showing her that anger, that fury (his hands are so big, and she has loved that until now because they have always been so gentle, and she managed to convince herself that they always would be gentle, but what if she was wrong?).

"I know, my lord," she whispers, turning her face away from his in the hopes he will not see how much she wishes to believe him, because she wished dearly to believe Joffrey and Cersei and they turned that against her.

They eat in silence, and Garlan and Lord Mace arrive before Sansa has managed to choke down much more than three strawberries (will he be annoyed if she does not eat them?) and half a cup of sweet berry tea.

She hates that she is afraid now, but how can she not be, how can she not be cautious when caution and courtesy have been her only defences in the past?

* * *

The ground is wet and mucky, so Willas has to hobble with Garlan under one arm and Father under the other to see where Loras has been laid.

"Who turned the sod?" he asks, forcing himself not to react to Father's frown of concern when his words come out hoarse and raw. He will not lose control of himself, not again. Not after that terrible fear on Sansa's face last night.

"I did," Father assures him, and both Willas and Garlan sag with relief – Willas wonders if Garlan, like him, was worried that Father would have gone against generations of tradition and allowed Margaery her way and let her turn the sod. "Garse offered, but it was not his place."

No, it was less the place of their bastard cousin than of their sister, Willas is certain of that, but he still hates that he was not able to do this one thing for Loras, hates that had they been able to travel just a little quicker, had he not been such a burden…

"Did he suffer?" Garlan asks, and Willas feels sick – Loras was not made for suffering and pain, their stupid, brilliant baby brother was made for glory and happiness, not this grave when they are all still young – when Father takes too long in answering.

It begins to rain, but none of them make any move to turn back for shelter. Willas grits his teeth against the pain in his leg and the pain in his heart, grips tight to Garlan and Father's cloaks, and when Father reaches across and pats him on the chest he nods, and they leave Loras to his peace.

* * *

Leonette is the one to find Sansa, to bring her to wherever it is that they are to spend their morning (Sansa intends on avoiding her and Willas' rooms, as well as Garlan and Leonette's, the library, and maybe Lady Olenna's – all the places Willas is most likely to look for her).

"You seem unwell," Leonette worries, brushing Sansa's hair back from her face, back over her shoulder. "Are you sure you did not catch a chill yesterday? You were ill before we left King's Landing, and then the ride home from Storm's End-"

"I am fine," Sansa insists, and she ducks her head, hiding her face as best she can until Leonette draws them to a halt.

"Come, then," she says after peering at Sansa for a long moment, tugging her up the stairs by the hand, towards Lord Mace and Lady Alerie's rooms, the lord's chambers and the lady's. "I know who you need to speak with now."

"Leonette, please-"

"Nobody knows Willas better than his mother, despite what my husband and Baelor Brightsmile like to think," Leonette says firmly. "And besides, few women are as useful in a crisis as Lady Alerie – she is wonderful, Sansa. You do not know her yet, not truly, but trust me, little sister, she is as good and kind as the boys say."

It amuses Sansa when Leonette refers to their husbands as "the boys," if only because there is, to Sansa's mind, absolutely nothing boyish about either Willas or Garlan, aside from their occasionally childish sense of humour (particularly not Willas, she cannot imagine a boy kissing her until she can't breathe, cannot imagine a boy's hands making her gasp just with a touch, cannot imagine a boy's eyes darkening and going hot when she walks out from behind her dressing screen in her nightgown).

She lets Leonette lead her to Lady Alerie's rooms and stands just slightly behind her goodsister while they wait for their goodmother to answer Leonette's knock on her door (carved with roses, is there anything in Highgarden not choking with roses?).

Willas looks very much like his mother, Sansa thinks when Alerie Hightower comes to the door, very much like his uncle and grandfather, although he is much slighter through the shoulders and chest, not quite so tall, and his jaw is not quite so square as, say, Baelor Brightsmile's. Lady Alerie has that same way of smiling as much with her eyes as her mouth that Willas has, though, and that is why Sansa does not hesitate to take the hand her goodmother extends to her, why she pauses only to see why Leonette has released her other hand.

"I will be with Margaery and Grandmother," she says, smiling and bowing her head to Lady Alerie, who waves her off with a nod before pulling the door closed behind Sansa.

Her solar is a beautiful room – Sansa does not mind having to keep rooms on the ground floor of the keep, knows how difficult it would be for Willas if she wished to move higher up, but the view out across the softly sloping banks of the Mander afforded by Lady Alerie's high, arched windows fair takes her breath away – and there is a bowl of fruit sitting on a low table between two deeply cushioned chairs.

"Leonette was going to bring me here regardless of what I said," she notes, tensing when she realises that she has said the words aloud, but Lady Alerie only gestures for her to sit, which she does.

"Now then," Lady Alerie says once she has settled herself and her voluminous skirts in the other chair and picked a shiny, deep red apple from the bowl, "tell me what happened last night."

"I am sure my lord-"

"Willas told me, and Garlan told me both what Willas said and what you said, but I should like to hear from you, my dear."

So Sansa tells her, because under the fear that Willas will be angry with her now she is angry herself, angry because she knows that she did not do anything wrong, knows that he had no real reason to be angry with her in the first place.

"He is so ill," she says earnestly, needing Lady Alerie to understand, needing to know that she is not the only one who sees it (although she knows only Aldwin is likely to be in a position to count Willas' ribs, now that they are so obvious under his clammy skin). "I- I worry, my lady. He does not seem to like it when I worry, though, but I do not understand why. I am his wife, it is not as though it is not my place-"

"I know, sweetling," Lady Alerie soothes, patting Sansa's hand gently and smiling sadly. "You must understand, though, growing up apart from the family made Willas… He feels as though he is expected to be entirely autonomous from us, you see. He loathes relying on us for anything, I think, and that makes his infirmity particularly difficult for him to bear."

Sansa almost protests that, because she knows how Willas hates to be called infirm, but Lady Alerie holds up a hand to forestall her objections.

"Oh, I know how sensitive he is to being called ill or infirm – or an invalid, which seems to rile his temper as few things ever have – but he is unwell, my dear. You of all people must see that."

She nods, thinking of how he sleeps so little because he cannot get comfortable in bed, how he eats so little because the pain and, if not the pain then the pain relief, turns his stomach, how he smiles so little these past weeks because even when he is not in pain he knows that he soon will be.

"He does not want to lose his leg, either, even though the maesters are insistent that it is the best course – he could have a false leg made, but he is so proud that-"

Sansa says nothing when Lady Alerie breaks off with a sigh.

"He is so much more like his father than either of them would ever admit," Lady Alerie confides. "My husband has that same foolish pride, you see, so I have a better idea than most how best to handle my boy."

"My lady?"

"Willas did not raise his hand to you, Sansa, not as you think he did – have you noticed that he sort of waves his hands about when he's explaining something?"

"I- yes, my lady, I have."

"Now, I assume that last night was the first time you were witness to his temper – for his sake, I hope it was the first time – and, while it does not in any way excuse how he frightened you, he does have a tendency to wave his hands about even more frantically when he is upset."

"I know," Sansa says. "When he is hurting, he sort of…" She trails off and gives a demonstration of Willas' absurd waving, and Lady Alerie laughs.

"Yes, that's it!" she exclaims. "I just hope that you know that he would never have raised his hand to strike you, Sansa. I know my son well enough, I think, and I know beyond any doubt that he adores you – Willas could never harm something he loves as much as he loves you."

Sansa can feel her cheeks heating up at that, because everyone seems certain that Willas loves her enormously except her, because she still cannot understand why he would love her as much as everyone seems to think he does (because she still wonders if they are wrong, if there is some other woman who truly holds his affection, his heart, and even though she is still not ready to give him her own heart, not completely, she desperately wants to be the one to hold his).

"He wants to help, sweetling," Lady Alerie says gently. "And mayhaps, in allowing him to help you, you might help him. He has been happier since marrying you than he has been since before his accident – it is as if I have my son back, Sansa, and mayhaps it is selfish of me, but if seeing you smile makes him happy, then I will do everything in my power to make you smile."

* * *

Willas tries to eat when Aldwin lays out lunch for himself and Garlan (Father is gone to eat with Uncle Garth, and Sansa is nowhere to be seen), truly he does, but the rich smells turn his stomach and he has to leave before he throws up.

He stops outside the music room, hesitant to enter after so long, but someone has been playing the dulcimer recently and it annoys him more than it should – the dulcimer is his, a gift from Grandfather, and for gods' sakes if it was Marg can she not content herself with her harp and her flute and her half dozen other instruments, and leave his one alone? – to see it uncovered, heavy sheet folded neatly on the floor beside it.

The music room smells of beeswax and brass, and the windows are tall and face south – it's raining today, so that makes little difference, but on a good day the whole room is bright because the sunshine reflects off the bare floorboards that are kept polished to a shine. Even when he was small and visiting Highgarden with Baelor (he has to admit, in hindsight, that he spent more time in Highgarden as a child than he may have led Sansa to believe), the music room was one of his favourite places to come and sit, one of the few places he would chose to go even knowing that Garlan would not want to come with him.

He pulls out the cushion-topped stool at the dulcimer before carefully, slowly, levering himself out of his wheelchair. It is hard work, laborious, but when he lifts the lid and sets his hands on the keys for the first time in too long, he thinks that it is probably worth it.

He's rusty – it's been too long since last he played – but he was always good at this, and it isn't long before he's so immersed in the music that he forgets to worry about his leg and Sansa and Loras and the war and Aegon bloody Targaryen.

"Willas?"

His fingers slip in the middle of an upward progression at the quiet sound of Margaery's voice, and he turns to look over his shoulder.

She looks so young, hair loose around her shoulders and none of the elaborate corsetry Grandmother had recommended she start to use when she'd married Renly, and her eyes are slightly pink, as if she has been crying.

Of course she's been crying he scolds himself, she was closer to Loras than anyone.

He shifts himself across on the stool and gestures for her to sit with him, which she does, but then she links her arm through his and rests her head against his shoulder just like she used when she was small and did not want him to return to Oldtown.

"You haven't played in a long time," she says quietly. "I was beginning to think you'd given up. You used to play happier things, though."

"These are far from happy times, Margie."

"You should be happier," she says, and there's something almost accusatory there in her tone. "You have a wife you adore and who loves you back as best she's able, you have Garlan with you even though you know he should be at Brightwater by now, you're the one negotiating with kings-"

"Margie-"

"Why are you not happy?" she asks, lifting her other hand and touching his face. "Is it your leg?"

"I- I am happy, Margaery! I know I've been in bad form since we arrived home, but, I, with Loras-"

"No, this is different," she says. "Garlan said something about you fighting with Aegon Targaryen-"

"He had no right-"

"He didn't mention it to Mother or Father or even Grandmother," she promises. "But, Willas… You must know Sansa would not want to marry someone else, surely? I have hardly seen you together and I know that."

He looks away from her, down at the keys on which his right hand still rests, and all he can see is Sansa's face when she thought he was going to hit her.

"She hates me," he whispers, shutting his eyes to try and force back the foolish tears that have sprung up from nowhere. "And rightly so, too."

"Is this about your argument last night?" Margaery asks, nonplussed. "Willas, it's only normal you and Sansa fight sometimes! Why, Mother and Father shout so loud at one another that you can hear them at the other end of the castle-"

"She thought I was going to strike her, Margie," he says, and he feels sicker even than when Aldwin laid the table. "How could she think that of me if she loves me, as you say she does?"

The whole stupid story spills out then, all in a rush, and his voice is rough with the tears he is still battling by the time he finishes.

"You are a fool, Willas."

He pulls away from Margaery sharply, slams the lid of the keyboard shut, and they sit there in the ringing silence for a long moment, her too stunned to speak and him too angry with himself.

"I know that," he grits out, and suddenly, he does know. "Gods, Margie, I know that, I know-"

She doesn't seem to know what to do with him when he slumps forward onto the keyboard and wraps his arms behind his head, when he starts to cry, and gods he feels so weak, but if he has truly ruined things with Sansa then what use is there in being strong? He has been strong for her these past months, but if that same attempt at strength is going to push her away…

"She thought I was going to hit her," he gulps out, breath hitching. "She thought that I could raise a hand to her in anger, and- gods, Margie, she thinks I'm no better than that creature-"

"Willas, no," Margaery says, nudging closer to his side and leaning over his back, resting her cheek just under his shoulder blade. "No, she could never think you like Joffrey, nobody could ever think that-"

"No, at least I hit my wife myself, I don't ask other men to do it for me," he forces out on a sob, and Margaery's fingers are soothing in his hair. "What have I become, Margie? I'm just- I'm so angry of late, and Sansa, I was never angry with Sansa until we went to Storm's End-"

"You're jealous," Margaery points out. "Needlessly, but you are jealous-"

"I know Sansa would never be unfaithful", he says, "I do, I know that, but how can she want me when she could have him? He's every maiden's dream, Margie, even Garlan had to admit that, and he's so much closer to her age-"

"Willas-"

"Yesterday night… What must she think of me, Margaery?"

"I don't know about that, but I do know that when you arrived yesterday evening, she cared about nothing but making certain that you were well, Willas. She was annoyed when you would not let her come with you to Maester Lomys, and that does not strike me as the reaction of a woman who hates her husband."

"That was before I- I-"

He can't find words to express just how disgusted he is with himself, how much he wishes he could erase every word spoken to Sansa in anger. He tries to find something, anything to say, but all that comes out is a sob and he hates himself for that.

Margaery winds her arms tight around him and shushes him the way Mother used when he was small, but she smells of roses and he has had quite enough of Highgarden, thank you very much, he wants rosemary and cool hands and shiny-soft hair and Sansa, his Sansa, he wants his wife, but he has ruined that, ruined everything because of his stupid temper-

"Willas? Are you hurt?"

He jolts upright as Margaery springs away from him, rubbing a hand roughly over his face before turning to Sansa, knowing that it makes no difference (gods, what must she think of him?) because he looks awful, he must do, and he cannot seem to catch his breath.

"I'll see you both at dinner," Margaery says, breezing past Sansa with a small smile and whispering something Willas doesn't catch before she closes the door.

"Are you?" Sansa asks, fists clenched in her skirts for a moment before she forces them open. "Hurt, I mean?"

He shakes his head, not trusting his voice as he watches her walk a circuit of the room, her long fingers tracing the shapes of instruments and furniture alike. She is so, so beautiful, and he presses a hand to his mouth to stave off another sob because she honestly believes he would hurt her.

He'd rather cut off his own hands than hurt Sansa. He just wishes he could make her see that.

She stands just too far for him to touch her, and her hands are clenched again, pink fingers and white knuckles and when he dares look up to meet her eyes, he can see that she has been crying too, but she manages to look so delicate about it, red-rimmed eyes and the skin underneath just slightly puffy.

"Please don't hate me," he whispers, feeling like a complete ass.

She jerks, almost as if she is going to touch him, but then she stops.

"I don't know what you want from me," she says. "I don't- I don't understand."

And it is as if he's having an epiphany: she is so, so young.

She is only just barely fourteen, they celebrated her nameday in the rain on the way home from Storm's End, and he is such an idiot, because he knows that she is so young, but he has been forcing himself to forget that because it is easier to not think of the fact that his wife, his beautiful, brave wife, is eleven years his junior.

And she hates him and thinks he could do her harm.

"Do you have a lover?"

He can't look away from her, but he can feel his mouth drop open.

"You think I have a lover?"

"You never talk to me the way-"

And he wonders if she is right (the way my father spoke to my mother, he knows she was going to say, he knows that she judges their marriage against her parents'), if it's true that he doesn't confide in her, because he does not want to worry her.

But for her to think that he is being unfaithful…

"I do not have a lover, Sansa," he says as firmly as he can.

"Garlan said that. He said that you've not… That you haven't… None but me in a long time."

"Three years," he agrees. "More – Garlan was teasing, and I just wanted him to stop."

"How long?"

He hesitates, but if telling her things will earn her trust…

"Not since I left Oldtown after the maesters said that there was nothing more that they could do for my leg."

"How long?"

"I was eighteen," he said softly. "When last I lay with anyone other than you. I- I could hardly move without pain for years after the accident, and then…"

"People saw Highgarden, not you."

She understands, because she was seen as Winterfell, not as Sansa, but he needs to tell her the whole truth.

"And I was… I lost someone very close to me, not long after the accident."

"Close to you in what way?"

In the way that I wanted to marry her, he thinks.

"Her name was Melinda," he says softly. "Her mother and Baelor's wife are sisters. She was two years my senior, and we were…"

"Lovers."

"I wanted to marry her," he forces himself to tell her. "I would have spoken to her father had she not… Had she not already been betrothed."

Sansa gasps, and he looks away, so ashamed.

"I loved her, Sansa," he admits. "I was thirteen when she came to the High Tower, and she… She was beautiful, and because I was living with Baelor as his squire, and she was with Rhonda as her ward…"

"You and she-"

"Yes. For years."

"Oh."

"She was betrothed to a Lannister of Lannisport from childhood," he goes on. "But we… We didn't care. We were careful not to conceive a child, and we never thought to worry about anything else."

"She was married not long after your accident?"

"She died, Sansa."

And Sansa's fingers are cool on his cheek, just a brush of her fingertips over his cheekbone, but it is enough to make him look back up.

"After my accident, before the wounds healed, I contracted blood poisoning. We… Everyone was certain that I was going to die – I suspect it's why my parents get so angry with me even still when I strain my leg. Linda had a somewhat different reaction."

He forces himself not to look away.

"We were not careful enough," he says briskly, "and I- I got her with child."

Sansa is pale, even for her.

"And your b- your child?"

He shakes his head, keeping his eyes on hers, seeing the pain and the fear.

"Melina chose not to reveal her pregnancy to me until three moons had passed, and I knew that the only way that I would ever be allowed to keep my child with me would be if she and I married, so we went to Baelor and Rhonda and confessed everything."

He takes a deep breath.

"Her betrothal was part of a binding contract, though. There was nothing we could do, and having my child would have ruined her, could have ruined everything, so Baelor sent for a maester."

"That's how you know things about moon tea."

He nods.

"How did she die?"

"It- the moon tea did its work," he says bitterly, and even though he knows that his parents would have been ashamed of him, bringing home a bastard, sometimes (not in a long time, not since Sansa) he wondered what it would be like to have a son with Melinda's dark eyes and her turned-up nose to keep him company, to love. "And we thought that that was the end of it – Melinda despised me for not fighting Baelor, and we did not speak again."

He pauses for a moment.

"Rhonda wrote to her sister, Melinda's mother, and suggested that it was about time for the wedding to take place – Melinda was eight-and-ten, after all – and while they were on the road north…"

He isn't sure he can actually form the words – nobody, not even Garlan knows the full truth of his and Melinda's relationship, nobody but Baelor and Rhonda – but he must, he owes Sansa this honesty.

"Her mother said that she started to bleed," he says. "Something – the moon tea, she was near four moons gone by the time she took it, and something went wrong. She bled to death, and her family staged a bandit attack so nobody would know the truth of it."

He turns back to the keyboard, lifts the lid but does not play, terrified of what her reaction will be.

"Thank you for telling me the truth," she says softly, and she rests her hand on his shoulder for a moment before departing.

How can she not hate me now, he thinks, and Mother lifts his hands from the keys when the light has slanted low and long, and there is sympathy in her eyes when she takes out her handkerchief and dries his face.


	18. Chapter 18

Sansa sits on the edge of the upper mezzanine in the library, legs hanging down into empty space, and tries to make sense of everything Willas told her.

He will never love me as he loved her she thinks, and that hurts so, so much, aches deep in her chest, and she presses her face into her hands and weeps. Is this how Mother always felt about Jon's mother, I wonder? Afraid that she would never measure up to some other woman?

To think of Willas loving another woman hurts more than she thought possible – if he had a mistress, some woman to sate his desire, she thinks she might almost be able to understand that. He comes to her so rarely to lie with him, and his kisses are always sweet, never demanding, and it almost makes sense that he would have a mistress.

But this is something else altogether, and she does not know how she is supposed to feel about it at all. She thinks that Garlan must not know, else he would have tried to warn her somehow, to prepare her, and to think that Willas has been carrying this around inside himself all these years (eight years, because he said it was not long after his accident and he was just barely sixteen when he had his accident, such a long time to hold onto something so terrible) makes her ache with sympathy for him.

It explains some things, she supposes – there has always been a sort of sadness tucked away in the back of Willas' eyes, behind the kindness and the love (because she does not doubt that he loves her, she simply thinks that he must not love her as he did this Melinda) and the smiles, because Willas' smiles are all in his eyes. She put it down to his leg, to sorrow at the state of his relationship with his family save Garlan and Lady Alerie, but it must at least in part have been rooted in his secret all this time.

Another woman was carrying his child, Sansa thinks, and she feels sick because she may not be his wife in every way, she may not be giving him a child yet, but she is the only woman who should carry Willas' children, not some faceless woman who seduced him when he was younger than Sansa is now. And he loved her, and it nearly ruined him to see her ridded of the babe.

That, oddly enough, is the one thing that does not trouble Sansa – Willas has so much love in him, hidden under confused resentment and misdirected anger, that it is impossible to think of him not loving a child of his, to think of him not wanting a child of his own. Even with how careful he has been not to get a child on her, two or three instances aside, he has never hidden his longing for children with her, sons called Brandon and Eddard and Rickon.

(But not Robb, not after what the Freys did to him, because Sansa isn't sure she could look at her son and not see that every time).

She likes the idea of having children, more than just to secure her place here at Highgarden. Children with Willas' lovely eyes and his love of learning and his sweet, almost shy smile and all that love in them, more beautiful than Loras and Margaery. She does want to have Willas' children, but she cannot help but wonder if he will always compare them to the child he might have had with Melinda and find them lacking because they are hers, not belonging to the woman he wanted to marry (Mother must have wondered if Father compared Robb and Jon and found Robb lacking, too, no wonder she could not love Jon).

Had Willas and Melinda been allowed to have the babe, even if they were not allowed to marry, the child would be eight now, almost the same age as Bran and Prince Tommen (King Tommen, now). Sansa's stomach turns over at that (no, plenty of women marry men older than them, Mother's sister married Jon Arryn and he was old enough to be her grandfather, Willas is not so terribly older than me and he is Willas, anyways, he is different) and at the thought of how different her arrival in Highgarden might have been had she been greeted not only by her betrothed but also by his bastard.

Her weeping turns to sobs, and she makes no effort to keep quiet.

How is she supposed to fight against a dead woman, she wonders? And she does not doubt that she will have to fight for Willas' affections, because this woman who was his first love, the mother of his first child (but not his firstborn, Sansa thinks, and immediately feels despicable for it when she remembers the heartbreaking grief on Willas' face while he spoke of Melinda having to take the moon tea), his first woman, how is Sansa to measure up to that? From that to a girl masquerading as a woman, who he coddles and soothes and worries over – surely he cannot be satisfied with her when he has known love between equals?

Marian comes and finds her when she has been crying for longer than she thought and brings her away for a bath and to change for dinner (in the other bedchamber in her and Willas' rooms, she notes, and she thinks that mayhaps even just knowing that he is nearby might be enough to stave off the worst of her nightmares tonight, so she will stay here).

She hears a cry of pain from the other room while Marian is helping her rinse her hair, and she almost pulls on her robe and runs to him, but then she stops – when last she tried to express her concern, he became so, so angry, and she does not wish to risk provoking him again (because his hands have always been so gentle, but they are so big and he is so surprisingly strong).

* * *

Spots dance in Willas' vision as he leans almost all of his weight on Aldwin and tries not to move until the pain subsides enough for him to both move and not pass out.

"I'll have the smith take that ruddy handle off the tub," Aldwin says, glaring murderously at the offending loop of copper, the same one that Willas managed to catch the side of his knee on while climbing out of the bath. "C'mon, milord, just a bit more, then we'll get you into your chair and you'll be right as rain, come on now."

Willas does as he's told, moving jerkily because he can hardly stand the pain (sitting at the dulcimer all day with no support behind his knee was a very bad idea indeed), and even the relief of sitting down isn't enough, and he still can't see straight.

"How do I fix this, Aldwin?"

"Let them cut it off above the knee, milord."

"No, not my leg," Willas sighs, "Sansa, Aldwin, what am I to do about my wife?"

"I'd start with your leg, milord – easier to fix a mangled limb than the wreck you've made of things with Lady Sansa, I'd say."

"Aldwin-"

"Telling you for years to have the damn thing off," Aldwin continues as though Willas didn't speak, didn't try to object. "Your temper might improve if you don't have that useless lump hanging off you all the damned time."

For all his bluster, Aldwin's hands are still gentle on Willas' bad leg as he pats it dry, as he lifts it to help Willas into his smallclothes and breeches (but not his brace, because Willas isn't certain he'd survive the pressure of his brace on his knee).

"You'll take your poppy's milk now, I assume?" Aldwin says archly while Willas is pulling on his shirt. "No need for you to be wincing and whining your way through dinner, after all. Your lady has quite enough to worry about without worrying about you, you know."

Willas tugs his shirt down over his head, shifting slightly in his chair, and bites his lip.

"I told her about Melinda, Aldwin."

"Oh? About time, too. Not as if you've much of a romantic history to tell her about, that madness in Sunspear aside."

"I told her the truth about Melinda, I mean."

It's the first time Willas can remember seeing Aldwin speechless, and there's so much sadness in Aldwin's eyes that Willas feels almost ashamed.

"Oh, you poor fool," Aldwin sighs. "Let's pray you can help her understand about that."

* * *

Sansa is waiting in their sitting room (when did it become a sitting room, not a solar?) when Willas wheels himself out, her hair loose down her back and livid red-gold against the pale silver-blue of her gown. She herself is pale, the usual healthy hint of pink in her cheeks absent, and there are deep shadows that he did not notice earlier under her eyes.

"My lady," he offers, and he tries a smile, which she returns wanly. "Shall we?"

She holds the door open for him and pulls it closed behind them, and then she walks at his side in silence as they make their way along the corridors to the lower dining hall – Willas suspects Father's request that the whole family dine together has to do less with his and Garlan's absence for Loras' funeral and more to do with Father's overwhelming need to control every aspect of their lives – Father wasn't entirely convinced of the wisdom of Willas marrying Sansa in the first place, and now that they are so obviously not on good terms…

"Sansa," he begins, but he isn't sure what to say, doesn't know how she took the truth of his and Melinda's relationship. "Sansa, I…"

She smiles another of those small, thin, wan smiles, her hands fluttering at her waist before she clasps them firmly together. She's wearing a ring he's never seen before on the third finger of her right hand, he notices, silver, a thick, heavily-engraved band, a pattern of twisting branches and leaves. It covers almost the whole joint between her bottom and second knuckles, and it seems almost too big for her hand and yet somehow just right.

She is not wearing her wedding ring, though, and that makes his stomach twist uncomfortably. Does she wish to separate herself from him visibly?

"Will you sit with me after dinner?" he asks just as they reach the doors, and he prays that she does not refuse him this. "I feel that we… We ought to talk some."

She hesitates almost long enough to make a coward of him, to make him take back his request because he feels as though she does not wish it, he can see it in her eyes that she does not wish it, but then she gives him one more of those shadows of her usual smile and nods.

"It would be a pleasure, my lord," she says, and he knows that even days ago that would have been the truth but it is not now, and he is amazed by how painful that knowledge is.

He sighs and motions for her to enter before him, and thanks any god who might be listening that the lower dining hall has no dais for Garlan to have to carry him up with his leg as it is.

* * *

"You should come riding with us tomorrow, Sansa," Margaery suggests with a smile, gesturing further down the table to her cousins. "Willas will be in council with Father and the rest for much of the day, and even Mother is coming out with us, aren't you Mother?"

Lady Alerie, sitting on Sansa's other side, laughs.

"Margaery is quite insistent when she sets her mind to it," she says, smiling indulgently at her daughter (it reminds Sansa of how Father used smile at Arya when she misbehaved, when he knew but had no intention of telling Mother). "I rather think my company might help convince you to come, Sansa – conversation amongst silliness."

Sansa sits back and lets Lady Alerie and Margaery's gentle, heatless argument wash over her, watching Willas where he sits across the table between Lord Mace and Lord Garth. He looks so unwell, drawn and paler than she has ever seen him. He sits with his head resting in his hand half of the time, hiding his face even as he speaks with his father and uncle, but she catches his eye more than once and is not sure what to make of what she sees there.

"There is a stand of sentinel pines a ways along the roseroad that I think you may like, Sansa," Lady Alerie says, breaking Sansa out of her reverie. "Mayhaps you and I might visit it on the morrow, sweetling, while we are out on this ride of Margaery's – no doubt she and her cousins will be distracted by thoughts of pretty knights and us barely out of Highgarden."

"Sentinel pines?" Sansa breathes, barely daring to believe – she would have thought it too warm here, for such trees, but mayhaps the Reach truly is as fertile as people say, mayhaps the land here truly can support anything. "The godswood at home- I mean, at Winterfell, it is all sentinels save for the heart tree."

"Is it indeed?" Lady Alerie asks with a smile. "Well, it will be nice for you to see something of your home, then. I dare say you miss it."

"Oh, I did not mean- Highgarden is-"

"Lovely, yes, sometimes suffocatingly so," Lady Alerie agrees, waving aside Margaery's protests and smiling to her other side, to Leonette, who is nodding in fervent agreement as she tries to swallow down a mouthful of sweetwine. "But I know that I often miss the salt air of Oldtown, and Leonette doubtless sometimes wishes for the orchards of Cider Hall. You are allowed to miss your home, Sansa."

Lady Alerie's hands are the same shape as Willas', long fingers and a broad palm, when she takes Sansa's in her own.

"Highgarden may in time become like a home to you, Sansa," Leonette says gently, leaning around their goodmother, "but you do not have to forget your true home – your home is further than mine or Lady Alerie's, it is true, but mayhaps that is even more reason for you to hold onto it."

"There will be fools who call you a rose, dear," Lady Alerie says, squeezing Sansa's hand, "but you are no more a Tyrell than I am, or Leonette is – or even than my goodmother is, for all that they call her the Queen of Thorns."

Lady Olenna is sitting on the other side of Lord Mace to Willas, offering sharp opinions when she feels the menfolk are not doing as she thinks they should.

"You do not haveto be a Tyrell, Sansa – if you were more like Margaery and her cousins, I daresay Willas would not dote on you as he does."

Sansa flushes and looks away, and in that moment she catches Willas' eye and he is smiling, smiling and rolling his eyes as if in amusement at something Lord Garth is saying, and for that moment it is as if the past two days have not happened.

But then his smile fades slightly, and he seems unsure of himself, and she looks down because they have happened, and she cannot pretend otherwise.

* * *

He is waiting for her when she returns to their sitting room, easing himself into his armchair by the fire, biting his lip against the pain.

"My lord?" she calls softly from the door, not wanting to startle him. "Should I fetch Maester Lomys?"

Sansa likes Maester Lomys, because he reminds her of Maester Luwin sometimes but also of Ser Rodrick, in a strange way, because he is a much bigger, more robust man than Maester Luwin, and is very practical with it. She trusts him with Willas, knows that she will be able to trust him when the time comes to worry about her children, but she wishes Willas would listen to his advice a little more.

"No, Sansa," he grits out, moaning in relief when he settles himself, reaching down to pull off his boot. "No, my lady, but thank you for your concern – I am well enough."

She does not argue (not after when last he said those words to her) and takes her own chair on the other side of the fireplace. They are complimentary but not matching, she notices for the first time, upholstered in the same rich claret velvet but shaped differently – Willas' is higher, suited for his limited mobility, and has less cushioning than her own, and, she sees, has hidden compartments in the arms, under the padded armrests, where he stows books and-

"I did not know you smoked, my lord," she says, unable to hide her surprise when he draws forth a long pipe (as decorative as everything else in Highgarden), trimmed in silver, and a leather pouch that can only hold tobacco.

"Only a little," he says with a small smile, packing the bowl of his pipe and then frowning. "Damn it all – would you mind lighting a taper for me, Sansa? I meant to before I sat down, but I forgot."

She drops quickly to the hearth, lighting the taper he offers her and handing it back carefully.

"Sansa," he begins as he lights his pipe, "Sansa, what I spoke of today, you do understand that it is long in my past, don't you?"

She does not move from her place on the hearthrug, because she wants so desperately to believe that, truly she does, but the grief on Willas' face while he spoke of Melinda and their child was so raw, so fresh, that she cannot believe him.

His hand under her chin startles him, palm cradling her chin and fingers splayed along her jaw, her cheek. His skin is warm, his callouses rough but not so much that they scratch, and his fingertips move gently over and back as he simply looks into her eyes, deep into her eyes as though searching for something.

"You do not believe me," he says at last, and when he turns his head away he closes his eyes, and there are tears clinging to his eyelashes. "You must understand, Sansa, I have put it behind me – I was… Overwrought today while I was telling you. Melinda is in my past, Sansa. You are my present, my future – you must believe that."

She rises up from her heels, onto her knees, so she might reach his face.

"You loved her enough to- to-"

"To ruin her? To be reckless and foolish enough to cause her death? I hope never to love you in the same way I loved Melinda, Sansa. I had no right to Melinda, Sansa, and I knew that but I did not care. I was young and arrogant and stupid, and what I felt for her was… It was a shadow of what I feel for you."

He wears his beard even shorter than his hair, just a fine covering tight to his jaw and cheeks, and it's soft and rough at the same time under her fingertips.

"I want to believe," she whispers, primed to move away in case this angers him. "I do, but…"

"But after last night, you cannot."

"It is not just that," she protests, and he opens his eyes again, looks at her once more. "I just… I don't understand."

"Your father had a son with a woman not your mother," he says, setting aside his pipe and taking her face in both hands, leaning closer to her. "He went against all custom and raised your bastard brother with you and your trueborn siblings, you've told me as much yourself. Do you doubt that he loved your mother?"

"Never."

"Then why doubt that I love you, Sansa? Am I a lesser man than your father?"

"I never-"

The tip of his nose touches hers, and his eyes are half-closed. She keeps her eyes open though, open to see his face, the furrow in his brow, the way he's gnawing at his lip.

"Why can you not believe that I love you?" he whispers, holding her close to him, thumbs stroking over her cheeks. "Do you doubt me so entirely? Sansa, last night was one indiscretion, and I have never hated myself more for anything. Please, Sansa-"

"I know," she assures him, splaying her fingers over his cheeks and not knowing what to do when his tears run down her hands. "But- I- Willas, help me understand."

His mouth is warm on hers, and gentle, and she leans up as close to him as she can, twists her hands into the short, soft hair behind his ears (he keeps his hair short at the sides and hardly longer on top, just long enough to curl and fall over his forehead), tilts her head and parts her lips for him because she loves kissing him, loves having him kiss her, but something feels off, feels wrong, and she can see that he knows that too when he pulls away.

"Please, Sansa, please," and he guides her up to sit in his lap and wraps her tight in his arms, holds her as close as he can and buries his face in her hair. "Please, love, trust me, believe me-"

Sansa is so confused that she cannot even cry, that she does not know how in the world she is supposed to react to this, to Willas breaking apart in her arms, so she holds tight to him and tries not to do the wrong thing, to say the wrong thing.

"Please," he begs, "please, Sansa, I love you, you must believe that."

"I do," she whispers into his hair, "I do, but I wonder if it is enough."

"It can be."

"No," she disagrees. "No, you don't, don't trust me enough, and we cannot be happy, not truly happy, not unless you trust me."

"I do trust you-"

"You only told me about Melinda because you thought it would make me forgive you for last night," she says, and even as she says it she realises the truth of it. "You do not trust me enough to ask for help when you are unwell, you do not seek my council in anything-"

"I do trust you, I just do not wish to worry you-"

"That is precisely the problem!" she shouts, scrambling back out of his lap to stand before him with her fists clenched at her sides. "I am your wife! If I do not worry for you, who will? You certainly do not worry for yourself, and I will not see you destroy yourself through your own stupid stubbornness!"

"Why should you be forced to carry my burdens?" he demands, rubbing the back of his hand over his cheeks – she can see that his temper is rising, but she refuses to back down again, wonders if maybe he needs her to fight back the way Aldwin and Garlan do to keep him in check – and leaning forwards. "Bad enough that I suffer for my pains without-"

"Yet you wish to take on my pains! You wish to shoulder my burdens, even those I can carry myself! Do you not see why that is wrong, Willas? I see Garlan and Leonette, and they talk to one another, your mother and Lord Mace the same, but we do not!"

"Yes we do! Of course we do! How can you say that we do not speak?"

"That is the problem, we speak much but talk little!"

And yes, Lady Alerie's assurances that Sansa is right to miss home, is right to not feel completely a Tyrell, they have made her realise that it is not wrong for her not to understand Willas, too.

Yet, she wonders if mayhaps Lady Alerie gave her some unintended insight - He feels as though he is expected to be entirely autonomous from us, you see, and Sansa does see, she sees all too clearly now just how much her husband has isolated himself, able to love but refusing to see just how loved he is.

"What can I do to make this right?" he asks quietly, all temper and anger gone from him in an instant, and he sags, shoulders sinking forwards and head falling so low his chin almost touches his chest. "Tell me what I must do, Sansa, and I will do it. Anything, love, just let me know and it will be done, I swear it."

She touches his face, the soft skin of his temple, the sharp line of his cheekbone (too sharp, now, because he will not eat) and sighs.

"I do not know," she admits. "I don't know, Willas. I am sorry."

* * *

She sleeps poorly again that night, but is amazed to be woken not by Marian but by Margaery, for once without her coterie of cousins.

"Come, sister," Margaery says brightly, throwing back the curtains and letting in what little sunshine there is. "It is not so nice a day as we might have hoped, but wrap up warm and we shall not let it worry us – at least it is not raining, after all."

"Margaery-"

"Come, come!" Margaery practically sings. "You did not tell me you had your nameday last week – Leonette only mentioned it last night, and I have not yet had time to find you a suitable gift."

"You do not need-"

"Of course I do," she says breezily, and Sansa likes that Margaery is not so careful as she was in King's Landing, that she is so much freer here in her home. "Now, let us see – oh, this is pretty! You should wear this one!"

She draws a riding gown from the biggest of Sansa's trunks, thick wool the colour of a storm sky, dark grey with a queer hint of purple, a hint brought out by the deep purple velvet trim and the embroidery along the hem and cuffs (purple alyssum, like used grow in the window boxes in her and Arya's and Mother's rooms, Father had them planted because of the sweet smell).

"Did you do the embroidery yourself?"

"I- yes," she says, completely overwhelmed by Margaery's presence, which has a force not unlike a mailed fist to the jaw but which is much, much sweeter.

"You have a lovely touch for needlework," Margaery tells her. "I was admiring Willas' doublet last night – I thought it was new, but Mother says no, that you unpicked the old stitching and did it fresh. He looked well turned out, even if he's half a corpse."

Margaery looks away when Sansa strips to slip into the bath (she will wash her hair this evening, it has gotten too long and she needs Marian's help), and she is still looking away when Sansa emerges from behind the screen in fresh smallclothes and shift, her hair gathered untidily on the top of her head with a long strip of ribbon.

"Now then," Margaery says once she has Sansa sitting at the dressing table. "Let us see about your hair – do you know, I don't think Willas looked away from it once last night?"

"I'm sure that's not true," Sansa manages to say, unable to think of Willas without seeing him as he was when she took her leave last night, tear-streaked and despairing. "I- Margaery, what are you doing?"

Margaery's hands are busy in Sansa's hair, twisting narrow braids from her temples, from above her ears, pulling her hair back from her face.

"Trust me, Sansa," Margaery says, bending so her chin is resting on Sansa's shoulder. "I do know something about styling hair, you know."

By the time Margaery is done, there must be some seventeen or eighteen smaller braids in Sansa's hair, but they're all bound together in one long plait that hangs to her hips, threaded through with ribbons of purple and grey and pearl.

"There now," Margaery says, no small satisfaction in her voice and the purse of her full lips. "I'll send Marian in to you, and when you're dressed, come to Mother's rooms – we will all break our fast together, and then we shall set out. What do you say to that?"

She manages a smile and a nod, which seems to satisfy Margaery, and she has a few moments alone before Marian comes in and closes the door very firmly behind her.

"Lady Margaery is quite something," Marian says diplomatically, and then she digs through the drawers (she moved all of Sansa's things in here yesterday morning, anticipating Sansa's plans to not sleep in Willas' bedchamber anymore) and brings forth warm stockings and a warmer shift, too. "And she still has no clue how to dress herself beyond the pretty side of things. Here we are, milady – wouldn't want you catching a chill, now would we?"

Sansa obediently rolls up the stockings and changes into the warmer shift (lambswool instead of linen) before Marian lifts the gown.

"She is good at the pretty side of things, I'll give her that," she admits begrudgingly, but there's a smile playing at the edge of her lips and it softens her words. "You have a lovely purple cloak, too, my lady, do you remember the cloth coming from Oldtown, from milord Willas' grandfather – purple is such a lovely foil for your hair, almost as nice as blue."

She holds onto the bedpost and lets Marian pull her stays firm, but not tight, and then she checks her reflection in the full-length mirror by the window before pulling on her long riding boots and lacing them tight.

"I'll bring your cloak out before you leave, my lady," Marian says. "Go on now, you know the way to Lady Tyrell's rooms – hurry on, they shan't eat until you're with them."

Willas' door is still closed when Sansa makes her way through the sitting room, and she forces herself not to think on that as she climbs the stairs to Lady Alerie's chambers.

* * *

Riding out with the other ladies serves first and foremost to prove that Sansa is by far and away the weakest horsewoman in Highgarden, but she finds that she does not really mind – Lady Alerie and Leonette slow their pace to ride with her, while Margaery and Megga and Alla and Elinor ride on ahead, hair streaming loose behind them as they laugh together.

"We married women will take things at a more sedate pace," Lady Alerie says, winking at Sansa as she wheels her horse around and draws to a halt, motioning for Sansa and Leonette to join her. Sansa notices only for the first time then that only Lady Alerie and Leonette have their hair bound back fully like her own, and she wonders at that – it feels almost silly to be dressing her hair more maturely than Margaery, but now that Sansa sees Margaery away from court, away from Lady Olenna, she feels older than her, too, not just than the cousins.

They've come to a stop on a rise in the road, and Highgarden and the Mander both are below them – it is a beautiful view, even in the dim light of the overcast day, and Sansa drinks it in (and wonders how deep the snow is about Winterfell by now).

"You have been very quiet, Sansa," Leonette says gently. "Did you and Willas argue again last night?"

* * *

"Right then," Garlan says, bursting through the door of Willas' bedchamber with Father, Aldwin and Maester Lomys behind him. "We are seeing to your leg this morning while the ladies are away, or so help me, Willas, I will saw the damned thing off myself."

Willas holds his blanket close around himself, fresh out of the bath and only in his smallclothes, and tries to muster an objection but unable to get past stammering, like he did when he was a small child, before the maesters trained it out of him.

"Get him on the bed," Maester Lomys orders, and almost before Willas can think Garlan and Aldwin are lifting him by the arms and Father is carefully gathering his legs and they have him lifted across from his wheelchair onto the bed, and he can hardly remember ever being so confused in his whole life.

"What is going on?" he demands once he finds his voice, sitting up and ignoring just how mortifyingly embarrassing it is to know that really, there's nothing he can do to fight against their manhandling of him.

"We're getting you out of your wheelchair," Garlan says. "You hate the damn thing so much that getting rid of it might cheer you up a bit – now lay back and let the maester go about his business."

"Don't I get a say in this? It's my damned leg!"

"No, you don't," Father says firmly, crossing his arms over his belly. "Your choices with regards to your leg have done nothing but cause you pain – if Maester Lomys decides that amputating it is the best course now, you will have it off."

Willas recoils in horror, pushing himself to the other side of the bed to get away from them all, hating them so much.

"You can't do that," he gasps, "you can't, Father, please, you can't do that, you have no right-"

"If you are so insistent on keeping your leg, my lord, there is something else I might do to improve your mobility," Maester Lomys says. "It will put you on crutches, but crutches are eminently easier to manoeuvre than your chair, are they not?"

Willas hesitates, afraid that this plan of Maester Lomys' will involve him taking dreamwine and that, when he wakes up, he'll be less a leg.

"What does it involve?"

* * *

"He doesn't seem to understand," Sansa says at last, "I cannot accept his worry when he won't accept mine, when he won't trust me to care for him, and I- I-"

"Oh, he is more like his father than I feared," Lady Alerie fumes. "Stupid, prideful, stubborn idiot, just like Mace, oh, I will have his skin for this, I swear I will. Oh, Sansa, I did not realise he was so stupid as this, sweetling, I am sorry."

Sansa looks up to her goodmother and is surprised by the genuine apology in her face.

"I- what?"

(Cersei would have called her stupid for that, for this whole mess, but Lady Alerie is everything Cersei Lannister is not and for that, Sansa is more thankful than she could possibly express.)

Margaery and the others are off by the little stream in the copse they've claimed for their lunch, but Lady Alerie encouraged Sansa to sit with her and Leonette a little ways away from them, and Sansa is grateful that she accepted. She does not think she could bear the others seeing her this way.

"Willas is being just as much a blockhead as his father ever was," Lady Alerie sighs. "I am not going to ask for more detail than you have already given, but tell me – can he not see how he was wrong? Has he made some sweeping gesture in the hopes of being forgiven for unrelated transgressions?"

Sansa finds herself rendered speechless, because that is precisely what Willas has done, is doing, so she nods and nods and grasps the hand that Lady Alerie holds out to her.

"Ah, yes," Lady Alerie huffs. "Precisely like his father. Does it feel as if he will never, ever see what a fool he is being? As if his stubbornness is as unshakeable as the Wall?"

And yes, that is exactly it, so Sansa keeps nodding and then Leonette laughs.

"Garlan was just the same when we had our first real argument," she says, shaking her head. "We were not even married at the time, do you remember, my lady?"

"I remember he returned from a visit to Cider Hall in as foul a temper as ever I've seen him," Lady Alerie reminisces, a bitter twist to her smile. "All my boys took their pride and their temper from Mace, I think. Willas needs a shock, Sansa, to bring him out of this rut – Mace was just the same after our first true fight."

"What shocked him out of his… His "rut," my lady?"

Lady Alerie takes Leonette's hand, too, and her smile is so sad Sansa almost begins to weep again.

"I almost miscarried Willas during a row," she says, shrugging. "Mace hardly dares raise his voice to me even now, although his temper does sometimes still get the better of him – the trick is to shout louder, and there has never been anyone fit to shout down a Hightower of Oldtown. Pray that it will not take something so terrible to heal the rift between yourself and Willas, Sansa."

* * *

Willas coughs when someone – Father, he thinks – removes the gag from his mouth, and then he sobs because the pain-

"I did warn you that you would be better if not conscious for this," Maester Lomys points out, and Willas jerks away as the old man pulls another layer of treated bandages tight around his leg, bandages that will harden into a cast and hopefully hold his knee steady to heal in this new shape.

Having the ruined bones broken and reset was more painful than anything he's ever known, including the original breaking, but he had to stay awake, he didn't trust them not to take his leg-

Father clasps his shoulder and he reaches up without thinking to hold tight to Father's fingers, gripping hard on the blankets underneath himself with his other hand as his back arches in agony, and Garlan holds down his good leg to be sure he doesn't kick Maester Lomys.

"It's for the best, lad," Father says, but Willas can see the regret in his face (not so long ago he would have passed that off as regret on Father's part that his heir is so ruined, but he knows better now, knows that it is regret to have been party to Willas' pain). "You'll be better able to get around with your leg off the ground, you know that, don't you?"

Willas nods, but then Maester Lomys starts on the fourth layer of bandages and the pain is just too much, far, far too much.

(Before he passes out, he has time to note that Sansa's pillow still smells softly of rosemary.)


	19. Chapter 19

Three days after they rode out for the morning, Margaery is the one to wake Sansa again, this time with two enormous boxes tied with silk ribbons in her arms.

"Nameday gifts!" she trills, setting them down beside Sansa and plumping down onto the bed in a wave of rose perfume and rich deep pink damask. "The top one is from Mother and Father, but the other is from myself and the other young ladies. Go on, open them!"

Still half asleep, Sansa forces herself to smile and babble thanks as she opens the gift from Lord Mace and Lady Alerie (never mind that she didn't draw attention to her nameday because she did not want a fuss, under any circumstances, because Rickon's nameday fell just a week before hers and Rickon will never have another nameday), tied with silver ribbon.

"Oh," she sighs, because oh, Lady Alerie must have noticed the bracelet Willas gave her, the one he had Aldwin leave on her dressing table the morning before last with a note that she's still trying to decipher, links of slender racing wolves that chase around her wrist, and this ring, deep band engraved with those same wolves, it matches, it matches perfectly and it feels so good to be able to be proud of where she comes from. There's more from Lord Mace and Lady Alerie, too, a deep green shawl edged with silver roses, new riding boots (Sansa will have to thank Lady Alerie for all of this, and Lord Mace too, she supposes, even though she has thanked him for things before and it seems to embarrass him somewhat) and a velvet bag full to bursting of hair ribbons in all the colours Sansa likes. "How did they manage this? It has only been a few days!"

"Mother noticed you didn't have proper riding boots before you left for King's Landing," Margaery says with a shrug. "And as for the rest, well, the silversmiths are only too willing to oblige Father because he pays so well, and Mother's always been a deft hand at knitting, and it isn't as though ribbons are hard to come by – now open the other, Sansa, come along."

Sansa eyes Margaery suspiciously as she carefully sets aside the gifts from her goodparents, and wonders what has Margaery so excited as she pulls the dark green ribbon and lifts the lid of the second box. Under layers of packing cloth (raw silk, of course it would be silk, only the best for the future Lady of Highgarden, everyone had made certain that Sansa was aware of that), there is…

"Is this a nightgown?" she asks incredulously, lifting the flimsy thing of soft, pale green silk up to examine it. It's short, much shorter than anything she'd usually wear to bed, with narrow little filmy straps, and she can just tell that if she puts it on – if – it will hide practically nothing, because the silk is so fine as to be almost transparent, and because it dips so low in the front and is practically backless-

"Of course it's a nightgown," Margaery says briskly. "I dare say my brother will be helpless the moment he sees you in it-"

"I could not- I mean-"

"Oh, Sansa," Margaery laughs. "I may not be married in truth as you and Willas are, but I rather think I know something more of the marriage bed than you do, sweetling."

Sansa remembers Willas telling Lord Mace that Margaery was "fucking" one of Lady Oakheart's sons, and she wonders just how much Margaery really understands about the marriage bed, if she's ever had anyone look on her with the reverence (with the love, the almost painfully intense love) Sansa sees in Willas' eyes every time he touches her.

"Willas will be yours to do with as you wish once he sees you in this," Margaery says with a grin. "Oh, do smile, Sansa – you two have been fighting, this might help!"

Sansa smiles and thanks Margaery and sends her on her way, and when Marian arrives to help Sansa dress she has a reaction to the nightgown closer to what Sansa's own would have been had she not been worried about offending Margaery.

"Gods above!" she exclaims, holding the nightgown up to the light and casting a critical eye over it. "That girl spends altogether too much time thinking about seduction and not half enough thinking about behaving!"

* * *

"I want to get out of bed," Willas says firmly. "And not just for a wash, Aldwin, I want to- to at least sit out in the sitting room. It's not as though I intend on riding all the way to Oldtown in the next three days, is it?"

"I shouldn't think so," Aldwin says, throwing back the curtains and smiling over his shoulder. "Your father's ordered the stablehands not to let you in, on the maester's advice."

Willas scowls, hating that they all feel the need to watch him, that they do not trust him, and reaches out for the crutches that are just beyond arm's reach from the bed.

"Damn it, Aldwin, what do you think I'm going to do?" he snaps, straining and biting back a curse when Aldwin lifts his crutches away. "I only have one bloody functional leg-"

"And you'll rest the other until the maester says otherwise," Aldwin says. "Now, shall I fetch your chair?"

"Let me use the damned crutches-"

"You're well enough to support yourself on them, are you?" Aldwin says archly, folding his arms and planting himself firmly at the bedside. "You that could hardly push yourself up yesterday because you've eaten naught but half a bowl of broth in three days?"

"So help me, Aldwin-"

"You'll do as the maester says and I won't tell your father that you're behaving a foolish boy, milord."

Willas is so stunned by Aldwin's apparent anger that he can't speak, and he dresses himself (it's near impossible to get his breeches up over his cast, but he manages it) and lets Aldwin help him down into his wheelchair without argument.

Sansa is waiting for him in the sitting room, dressed all in blue and tying a gold ribbon around the end of her braid, a new ring that he doesn't recognise on her right hand. She smiles faintly, and he wonders if he should mention that he heard her cry out in her sleep – he thinks not, because her nightmares seem to embarrass her so much, but she seems pale and tired and he does worry.

"How are you this morning, my lord?" she asks when Aldwin wheels him to the table (and yes, he must admit that he probably doesn't have the strength in his arms to support himself on his crutches but gods, couldn't he at least be allowed to try?). "Do you feel well enough to eat?"

Willas dismisses Aldwin and Marian with a wave and, when Aldwin lingers by the door, a frown, and turns back to Sansa. She's already busy with her food, spreading strawberry conserve on toasted bread-

"You should eat," she says softly, passing her plate across the table to him. "You've hardly eaten a thing in days, my lord."

He catches her hand before she can pull back, examining her new ring, the pattern of wolves.

"My mother?" he guesses, and she nods slightly.

"And Lord Mace," she agrees, letting him hold her hand and he feels almost pathetic at how much that pleases him. "A nameday gift, one among too many."

"It matches your bracelet," he says quietly, rubbing his thumb over her knuckles. He can feel the pulse on the inside of her wrist under his fingertips, and when he glances up at her face there's a pretty pink blush in the apples of her cheeks. "I never thought of a matching ring. I should have."

"You have given me more than enough, my lord," she insists, and she is still letting him hold her hand, is looking down at their hands with the same surprise he feels, because he has barely touched her since their fight and she has gone out of her way to avoid touching him (the nights are so, so lonely without the warmth of her curled against his side, her head on his shoulder and her arm thrown over his chest). "You have given me safety, and-"

"Sansa," he says softly. "Please."

They sit there in quiet for a little while, him holding her hand and her allowing him to do so, and it feels almost normal.

"Did you sleep well, my lady?" he asks, and now that he looks there are deep, dark shadows under her eyes, and he is so concerned that he touches them without thinking, tracing them with a fingertip and not realising that he may be doing wrong until Sansa's breath hitches.

"I have not slept well for the past few nights," she whispers, meeting his eyes carefully. "I have- I have found no peace."

He curls his hand around her jaw, thumb stroking over her cheek, and sighs.

"Would you like for me to speak to Maester Lomys for you? He might have some tincture that would ease your sleep-"

"I miss you," she blurts out. "But I-"

"You still do not trust that I will not raise a hand to you again," he says, nodding and trying not to sound bitter. "And you are still… Disappointed in me, because of Melinda."

"Not disappointed," she disagrees, biting her lip. "I just…"

He waits, thumb still stroking across the soft skin of her cheek, still holding her hand, closer to her than he has been for days and gods, she smells exquisite and gods, he's missed her so much, missed being able to touch her like this and he aches to kiss her but worries how she would react.

"I don't fully understand yet," she decides at last. "I need more time to piece it all together. I am trying, though."

He sighs, biting his lip as his thumb presses to hers, watching the blood rush back in its trail. So beautiful, he's not been coherent enough for weeks now to truly register just how stunning she is, because no matter what he might have told himself, the pain and the lack of food and sleep left him near delirious, and he…

"The other night, Sansa," he says reluctantly, because it's been plaguing him since yesterday afternoon, when he finally felt himself (or very nearly) for the first time in weeks. "When I- frightened you. I know you said I didn't, but did I strike you?"

With how strange and contradictory his memories of the journey home from Storm's End have been, when he's discussed them with Garlan, he worries that he might have convinced himself that he hadn't laid hands on Sansa when he had.

"No, my lord," she says, voice harder than he expected. "You have never hurt me like that. Not once."

That is a relief, at least, and she does not move away from his hands, lets him touch her and watch her like this, and that, too, is a relief, because with her in the other bedchamber and holding herself so apart from him, he feared that they would never have anything like this again.

His stomach growls, ruining the moment but making her smile that sweet little smile, and she moves away from his hands. He laments the loss, but she's already picking out a plate of food for him, pushing the plate of toasted bread towards him without looking away from the fruit bowl.

"Sansa," he sighs, "Sansa, you must eat too, my love."

She glances up at him almost shyly, from under her eyelashes, and simply continues setting skinned grapes and slices of apple on the plate by his hand.

"Eat up, my lord," she says, and then she reaches for the strawberries, and he smiles – she has such a sweet tooth, and he laughs under his breath when her eyes close in pleasure when she bites into one of the fruits-

But then the juice drips down her fingers and she, she sucks it off, and his laughter dies in his throat and he can feel his eyes going wide and his cheeks flushing, but gods be good if that's not the most beautiful thing he's ever seen and he's rooted to his seat, unable to move even when she notices him staring.

"My lord?"

He doesn't mean to do it, truly he doesn't, but she's so beautiful and he has missed her so much and gods, sucking her fingers clean, but he reaches over and slips his fingers into the soft hair at her nape and pulls her mouth to his-

* * *

Sansa's seen that heat in Willas' gaze before, but not usually unless they're in bed or the bath, not usually unless she's bare under his hands and he's bare under hers, but oh, the wrongness in their kiss has faded from the other night and it feels so good to be with him like this, the rub of his beard on her cheeks and the warmth of his big, long hand on the back of her neck, the tickle of his tongue against the roof of her mouth and the faint scent of saddle leather that clings to him like a perfume (she wonders if he notices that his hands smell of rosemary after he's touched her hair, from the rosemary oil she started using when Marian recommended it to help smooth her curls) and she truly has missed him, but part of her cannot stop thinking of the slinky excuse for a nightdress Margaery presented her with not an hour past, and she knows that this is not the way to repair what is wrong between her and Willas.

"No," she says sharply, pulling away so quickly that he is left quite clearly startled. "I- no, my lord, we-"

And he looks hurt and angry and upset and ashamed, so deeply ashamed that it takes her breath away, and then he's awkwardly pushing himself back from the table, jaw tight with the effort of wheeling himself away from her, and that isn't what she wanted at all but his control has been so fragile this past while that she fears pushing him lest he break and lash out at her.

"I am sorry, my lady," he says through gritted teeth, "I should not have taken liberties. Please, forgive me."

He's halfway into his bedchamber by the time she finds her voice.

"There is nothing to forgive," she calls after him, but he merely pauses a moment before continuing on and slamming the door behind him. "There is nothing to forgive," she whispers to the polished wood, wondering if she should follow him in, but she decides against it. Let him calm down, and later, when he is more rational, she will speak with him, tell him that she did not mean to reject him as severely as she did.

In the meantime, Lady Alerie invited her to ride out to the market with her and Leonette today, so Sansa supposes her and Willas' conversation will wait at least until she returns.

* * *

"Willas kissed you this morning, I see."

Sansa can only look at Leonette in horror, wondering how in the world her goodsister worked that out, but Leonette is grinning as she taps the side of Sansa's mouth.

"Beards," she says, still grinning as Lady Alerie returns. "The bane of the wives of House Tyrell, I think."

Lady Alerie's smile is more demure but still teasing when she passes a little pot of the beeswax balm Leonette swears by to Sansa.

"It might not be so bad if they wore their beards a shade longer," Lady Alerie laments. "They might not scratch so much if they did."

Sansa blushes and carefully rubs a little of the balm into the tender skin Leonette pointed out, but Leonette ducks away to laugh heartily, and Lady Alerie rolls her eyes.

"I daresay I know a great deal more about kissing than you, Leonette Fossoway," she chides mockingly. "I have mothered four children, you know, and none of them were conceived in any untraditional manner."

"Lady Alerie!" Leonette exclaims, throwing her head back and laughing (she and Garlan are almost frighteningly well-fitted for one another) so hard that Sansa feels herself start to giggle along. "We do not need details!"

"Well, my lord and I were quite bountiful, so clearly we were doing something right," Lady Alerie says before bursting into peals of laughter herself, and Sansa turns away because suddenly she can't stop laughing, the three of them must look fools, standing in the middle of the market and laughing, but no one is paying them a moment's mind, and that is somehow beautiful – it is almost like being home, in the winter town with Mother and Arya, where nobody paid any mind to Lord Stark's younger daughter jumping in puddles or the elder one begging new hair ribbons.

"Oh, come now," Lady Alerie sighs at last, taking Sansa's hand and motioning for Leonette to join them as they continue along the walkway. That is new to Sansa – everything here in Highgarden and its environs strains to be beautiful, and that means that even here in the market the pathways between the stalls are cobbled, the same smooth, slightly rounded cobbles as lined the roseroad all the way to Oldtown. Part of it, Sansa thinks, is that the Reach really is as wealthy as everyone says, but part of it must be vanity, because even she was never so squeamish about getting her skirts mucky. Then again, she doesn't think she's ever seen quite so much silk and velvet as she has since she came to Highgarden, not even in King's Landing, and the idea of sturdy boots other than riding boots seems to escape just about everyone – even the men wear soft-soled, almost decorative boots unless they're riding (well, Willas wears solid boots all of the time, but that is to support his weak ankle).

Still, everything here is a novelty – the cobbled pathways, the brightly coloured awnings hanging out over the shop fronts, the colours in everything, in fact. From the children running errands for their parents to Lady Alerie herself, resplendent today in rich teal edged with gold, everyone seems dressed for a feast or a ball, and Sansa wonders what they would make of the muted greys and browns and blues of Winterfell.

And everyone, absolutely everyone, seems to be wearing roses! That confounds her so much that she feels compelled to ask, and Lady Alerie's smile is proud.

"Despite what my goodmother and indeed my father and brothers may think, my husband is well liked here in the Reach," she says. "He may be no visionary leader or great tactician – he entirely loses his head when he tries to be one or the other, but unfortunately fancies himself both – but he is an excellent administrator, and our people are thankful to him for it."

"My father always says that it was better to have the trust of your people than their love," Leonette adds, "and while the people may not like Lord Mace – no offence meant, my lady," she hastens to amend, but Lady Alerie only smiles and waves her on. "But they definitely trust him, Sansa, and that is why they are happy to have House Tyrell as their lords."

"That is why nobody is paying us any mind, sweetling," Lady Alerie says, "because no matter how silly Leonette may be in her manner, they know that we are Lord Tyrell's wife and gooddaughters."

"And that we pay, unlike Lady Olenna," Leonette adds wryly. "She seems to expect, which is poor practice – we have gold, the smallfolk need gold, and in giving them our gold we get things we need. Lady Olenna is under a misapprehension wherein she needs things, the smallfolk have those things, and they should be glad to give them to her."

"Lady Olenna feels that a great many people have what is rightfully hers and should give it to her and be grateful to do so, myself included," Lady Alerie says, mouth twisting. "Rest assured, Sansa, when the time comes for you and Willas to take Highgarden as your own, I will hopefully be a great deal more gracious about it than my goodmother was."

"I can't imagine you being ungracious," Sansa says honestly, and Lady Alerie's face softens and she pulls Sansa closer.

"I wish you could have known Willas before his accident," she says. "Before all this bitterness took him, Sansa – he was almost as sweet as you, dear."

* * *

Willas slides gratefully into the bath after a long day spent discussing the defences of the northern borders, and wishes more than anything that he could submerge his bad leg, too – but that, of course, would ruin his cast, and Maester Lomys already told him off for that the day before yesterday, when he'd splashed it because he lost his balance getting out of the tub. Still, at least his back will be eased somewhat by the heat of the water. It's a touch hotter than what he usually likes, closer to what Sansa likes, but-

But now all he can think of is baths shared with Sansa, him wincing at the heat that almost had her purring, and he supposes there's no point in fighting the arousal he's been pushing aside all day, since that damned kiss this morning, his blood's been up all day and he's had to concentrate fiercely to not fall into daydreams of, of, gods he's ashamed of himself but he's had half a mind to just find Sansa and throw her down on the bed and fuck her, fuck her until she can't walk, his leg be damned, and gods, oh he can already hear her, those soft little sounds she makes (his hand slides under the water) when he touches her, the way her kisses always start so shy (he takes himself in hand and hisses because it's almost painful) and then grow more daring, the way she whimpers when he slides his hand between her legs to touch her cunt, (his hand moves faster, grips just a little tighter) her sweet, hot cunt that always feels so utterly perfect around his cock-

He comes so quickly that he's embarrassed, that he's glad Sansa is not sharing this bath, because gods above he's a man grown, he's nearly five-and-twenty years of age, he should have more control, he shouldn't, he should not need to touch himself in the bath like a boy ten years his junior, especially not to thoughts of his wife when she so clearly does not want him thinking of her that way, and he feels dirty and small and upset with himself and so chronically embarrassed that he can't even bring himself to call for Aldwin, and, well, his crutches are just there, surely he can manage to get out of the bath?

This proves a greater challenge than expected, as per usual because of his knee (and his arms, which he has to admit are a great deal weaker than he would like, because this was the first day that he ate more than one meal in over a week). Maester Lomys had the ends of his crutches wrapped in stippled leather for grip, but they still slip a bit on the tiled floor of the bathing area, and he nearly loses his balance more than once – but he manages, he does, he is not as incapable as everyone thinks he is (oh gods, how is he going to look Sansa in the face over dinner, knowing that he sat in the bath and did that thinking about her?!).

He nearly slips and falls three times on his way across the room to the chest of drawers, his towel wrapped loose around his hips and another length of linen tucked into the top of his cast to stop it from getting wet, and he holds his smallclothes and his shirt in his teeth while making his way back to the bed (all the way around to his side, Sansa's side still smells faintly of rosemary and he wants to preserve it for as long as he can because he doesn't know, gods, especially after he – did he force that kiss on her? Oh gods, he did, didn't he! She'll never want to share a bed with him now!)

He's only barely gotten his smallclothes up (sit down pull them up over his cast stand up get them the rest of the way up while balancing on one foot grab crutches before he falls) but there's a knock on the door. Willas ignores it, just as he tries to ignore the flush of embarrassment (and want, he's not going to deny that if anything he just wants Sansa even more now) in his cheeks as he pulls on his smallclothes. But then- "Willas, lad, may I come in?"

Father.

He stands there for a long moment, unlaced and blushing deeper even than before, wondering if Father would excuse him for being rude if he's passed out from sheer mortification on the floor, but then Father knocks again and Willas thinks he might be sick with how much he wishes the ceiling would cave in.

"Just a moment, Father," he calls over his shoulder, sitting back down and quickly lacing himself up and reaching for his shirt – which he only has half-on when the door bangs open and shut in quick succession, because Father has never been a patient man. "I could have been nude, Father," Willas notes dryly when he manages to wrestle his shirt down over his head, and Father huffs and frowns and goes looking for breeches for him, frowning deeper when he comes across empty drawers.

Willas sighs.

"Those were Sansa's drawers," he says quietly, rubbing a towel through his hair (gods, he's glad he washed his hair before… that) and refusing to look at Father.

"Were?"

"She's moved into the other bedchamber. My breeches are in the second drawer of the dresser, by the way."

Father finds a pair – Willas' finest pair, of course, because Father is of the eternal opinion that Willas should dress better, but right now Willas is willing to take anything at all if it means Father will leave and he can have a moment to stop blushing and mayhaps call for another bath because he feels so wrong-

"What's wrong, lad? Is it your leg?"

Willas looks up, startled by the alarm in Father's voice, and it's only then that he notices the tears on his cheeks.

"Gods damn it all," he says, tossing aside his crutches and flopping back onto the bed, screwing his eyes shut because he will not cry, not again, he's been like a child this past week or so and that's near as bad as what he was-

He opens his eyes in surprise when the mattress dips beside him, and he looks across to see Father lying there, looking up at the canopy with his hands folded over his belly and a contemplative little frown on his face.

"Your mother tells me that the main problem here is that your wife wishes to look after you, but you will not allow her to," he says, twiddling his thumbs. "Does she displease you, son?"

"I- no, I just-"

Are her ministrations somehow offensive to you?"

"I do not-"

"Other than to your pride, I mean."

Willas fires back up to sitting then, furious again because this is precisely what he hates most about his family, their refusal to see that he does not need a nursemaid.

Father stays where he is, linking his ankles and swinging his legs idly as he speaks again.

"If it were me in your position, my boy, I think I would rather have my wife as confidant and support than pushing her and everyone else away just because of my misplaced pride."

"You don't understand," Willas says sharply, hunching his shoulders and gripping the edge of the mattress to try and force himself to calm down. "You all… I am not weak, Father."

"We never said you were, lad," Father points out. "We try to make things easier for you because we hate seeing you hurt."

There is a pause, a moment of quiet, and then Father heaves himself up to sit beside Willas.

"Do you remember much of your accident, Willas?" he asks. "Beyond what Baelor Brightsmile told you?"

"What do you mean by that? Why do you ask?"

"The very first thing Brightsmile did, before even sending for a maester, was blame me for allowing you to compete. Mayhaps he was right, but you were more than good enough – I maintain to this day that there was some trickery involved when you rode against the damned Viper – and I'd never been prouder than I was when you came to me to ask permission to enter the lists."

Willas still isn't certain what the point of this is when Father wraps an arm around his shoulders and pulls him close, kissing his damp hair and sighing before setting his brow against Willas'.

"I have always been proud of you, lad," he says firmly. "I may not be very good at showing it, but I've never thought you weak. Stubborn as a mule, of course, and near as proud as I am, but you are a Tyrell, no matter how much Hightower there is in you. You are my son, and you have borne your injury with better grace than any other man I know would have – how could I not be proud of you?"

Father makes to move away, but Willas catches hold of the hem of his doublet, the way he used when he was a child.

"Does everyone hate me, Father?" he asks quietly, looking down. "For how I've been behaving, I mean."

"Oh, you stupid boy," Father says, sounding exasperated but so fond, and then he's hugging Willas tight to his belly and Willas, for the first time in too long, allows himself to be comforted.

* * *

Dinner is strange that night, everyone wrapped up in his or her own thoughts, but even preoccupied as she is Sansa notices that Willas seems slightly less forlorn than she expected, which can only be a good thing.

That is not to say that he is not melancholy – he does not speak much, spends most of the meal frowning at his plate, but at least he does not seem as hopelessly sad as he has the past few days, and that is an improvement.

He is quiet, too, as they make their way back to their rooms, pensive, almost, and seemingly oblivious to visible the strain he was under wheeling his chair by himself.

"My lord? Would you like me to…?"

He looks up, and she can see that he's about to bite back, but he restrains himself and forces a small smile instead.

"I am heavier than you might be able for, sweetling," he warns, but while he is heavier than she expected he is no heavier than she can manage, and she feels hugely pleased with herself for helping him, and pleased with him for accepting her help.

"Are you well, my lord?" she asks once she has the door of their sitting room closed, shutting them off from the rest of the world, and he looks at her strangely, cocking his head and pursing his mouth.

"Come here, Sansa," he says, holding out his hand, and she squeaks in surprise when he pulls her down to sit across his lap, carefully keeping her weight on his good leg. "I have not been a very good husband of late, have I?"

"I- my lord, I-"

"Sansa," he says softly, pressing a finger to her lips. "May I?"

She nods, and he takes a deep breath before continuing.

"I want to be better," he says slowly. "Which means, which means allowing you more control."

"Have you been talking with your mother?"

"My father, actually. He thinks that I… Need to step back a little, in some ways. He feels that I could benefit from allowing others – you, mainly – to… help me more."

"Your father is a wise man, then."

He smiles slightly, and then he sighs again.

"I never courted you, Sansa," he says. "And, if you will permit it, I should very much like to try courting you now."

She frowns in confusion – they are married, in every sense of the word, surely the time for courtship was long past?

"That does not mean, however, that you should feel as though you cannot come to me, if you need me," he tells her. "It is more… I can never seem to stop myself, Sansa, and for that I apologise – this morning was a case in point, I think."

She blushes at the memory of this morning's kiss, the first that has felt good in too long.

"I despise the way I have been treating you, Sansa – everyone else, too, but you are my wife, and…"

"Slowly," she says. "We should take things slowly. I still do not fully have everything in place in my mind, and you are still very ill."

"I hate that word," he says. "People say that Malora is ill, and they call her the Mad Maid – I cannot help but wonder what they call me behind my back."

"I'm sure Garlan would kill anyone who said a bad word about you," Sansa whispers, smiling and pressing a kiss to his temple. "But you do need to rest – do you need help getting into bed?"

"Aldwin is waiting for me," he says, nuzzling against her cheek for a moment. "But thank you, love. Go on, get to bed – we will speak in the morning, yes?"

She slides carefully out of his lap before answering, making certain she has not hurt his leg.

"Of course," she promises, leaning down and kissing his lips this time, surprising him. "Goodnight, my lord – sleep well."

"You as well, my love," he calls after her, and then she closes her bedchamber door feeling less apprehensive about sleeping than she has in a week or more.

* * *

Willas wakes with a shout when the door of his chamber slams open, and he is still lying down when Sansa lands heavily in his arms.

"What is it, sweetling?" he asks softly, stroking her hair and ignoring how good it feels to hold her because she is so obviously distressed - no, terrified, she's shaking as she hasn't since the very early days of their marriage, when the nightmares took her every night. "Is it a bad dream?"

She points a trembling hand back towards the door, huddling closer to him when he sits up, and for the first time he notices the shadow in their sitting room.

A shadow in a hooded cloak that hides its every feature from view.

"Who sent you?" he asks, pulling Sansa closer, one arm tight around her waist and his other hand on the back of her head, pressing her face against his shoulder so she need not see. "Why are you here?"

"Nobody sent me," and that voice is too high and too highborn to be an assassin, surely? That is a girl's voice, and he cannot imagine the Lannisters sending a child, much less a girl child, to kill Sansa. "I'm here for her, so let her go."

"I'll do no such thing," he says, but he can feel Sansa stirring in his arms, feel her peeping back through her hair, and he hears it when her breath catches.

"Put down your hood," she orders shakily. "Put it down. I want to see your face."

"Sansa," Willas murmurs, but she puts her hand over his mouth without looking, transfixed on the girl in their sitting room as she reaches up and pushes back her hood. Her hair is a mess, shorn short and half grown out, nearly to her shoulders in places, and her eyes are dark and sharp. There is something there, in the shape of her mouth of the tilt of her head, but it's not until Sansa leaps from his arms and scrambles off the bed to get to the girl that Willas thinks to make anything of it. "Sansa, what in the world-"

"I thought you were dead," she's saying, taking the girl's face in her hands, "I thought you were all dead, that I was alone-"

"I ran away," the girl says, "the man from the Night's Watch, Yoren, he helped me hide-"

"Sansa," Willas calls firmly. "Who is this girl?"

When Sansa turns back to him, she's happy in a way that he has never seen before, and she's so beautiful it takes his breath away.

"Arya," she says, almost laughing. "It's my sister, my sister Arya, Willas – she is alive!"


	20. Chapter 20

Sansa's sister seems impossibly out of place, standing on the hearthrug in their sitting room in her filthy breeches and tunic, especially surrounded now as she is by Willas' family all bundled up in robes of varying colours, in Father's case edged with gold embroidery at the hem and cuffs.

Sansa stands protectively at her sister's side – Arya Stark, alive and well and standing under Sansa's arm, Willas still doesn't entirely believe it – and glares defiantly about her, her own deep blue robe and the long, soft braid of her hair a comical contrast to her sister's appearance.

And then, of course, there is the matter of the damned sword on Sansa's sister's hip.

"You say a recruiter for the Night's Watch helped you escape King's Landing with the intention of returning you to Winterfell on the way to the Wall," Father says sceptically, and Willas can't help but share his disbelief – it seems too neat that Sansa's sister should show up now, here, but Sansa is insistent that the girl really is Arya, and he supposes that she would know best, would she not?

"The Starks have always supported the Watch," Sansa offers. "It is not truly so absurd as it sounds, my lord, to think that the Watch might have in turn offered us support in something like this. Besides, what does it truly matter how Arya escaped King's Landing? My sister is alive, my lord – we should celebrate!"

"And we will, Sansa," Mother promises her, edging slightly closer, eyes narrowing when Arya scowls at her. "But you must see why we worry-"

"This is my sister," Sansa insists. "I would know if she were an imposter, Lady Alerie, please, you much believe me!"

"How did you find your way to Highgarden?" Willas asks, and Sansa looks at him with something that might be hurt in her eyes, hurt or betrayal. "I am sorry, my love, but we must know – if nothing else, we must know how your sister found her way into the keep at night. The guards are obviously not doing their work-"

"I was at the Twins," Arya says suddenly. "That night. When Mother and Robb died. The- The Hound wanted to ransom me to Robb, but then… And I got away, and the Brotherhood found me again-"

"The Brotherhood?" Garlan asks. "Who are the Brotherhood?"

"The Brotherhood Without Banners," Arya explains. "Lord Beric Dondarrion leads them – or at least, he did. Gendry and me ran away from them because they were planning on marrying me off to someone, or ransoming me to our aunt in the Vale, and while we were in the Riverlands we heard people talking about a woman leading the Brotherhood. I don't know if it's true or not, though."

She's not telling us something, Willas thinks, watching the way Arya refuses to meet even Sansa's eyes. But mayhaps she will tell us, in time. "Continue, my lady. My brother did not mean to interrupt."

"We met Lady Brienne while we were travelling south," she says. "And she said that Mother had charged her to bring Sansa and me to safety, and she said Sansa was probably safe here at Highgarden so she'd been hunting me, even though everyone said I was dead."

"Brienne of Tarth?" Father asks, rising to his feet with a face like thunder. "That murdering-"

"She didn't kill Lord Renly!" Arya snaps. "She loved him!"

"Who was it then?" Father demands, folding his arms and matching Arya scowl for scowl. "This shadow she was screaming about when my son found her standing over Renly's corpse?"

The corner of Arya's eye twitches, and Willas wonders what precisely Sansa's sister has seen on her travels.

"Stranger things walk now than shadows, my lord," she says coldly, eyes like winter and hands balled into tight little fists at her sides.

"Did Lady Brienne bring you all the way here?" Sansa asks hurriedly, turning her sister to face her. "And this Gendry – who is he?"

"He's a blacksmith. He's stupid, but he's strong," Arya says, and Willas can see a gleam of amusement in Garlan's eyes at that. "Him and Lady Brienne travelled with me."

"Where are they now? I should like to thank them for returning you to me," Sansa says, her arm tightening around Arya's shoulders. "Are they within the castle as well?"

"Gendry is," Arya says, shrugging. "He got work as with the steward and I've been working in the kitchens. Like I said, he's strong."

"And Lady Brienne?"

"She's camped not far away," Arya says, "but I won't say where because he'll just have her arrested for something she didn't do," she adds, pointing at Father and looking positively murderous. "She wouldn't be able to disguise herself enough to work in the castle so she stayed away, but Gendry goes out to her with food and messages."

"How long have you been here?" Sansa asks, sounding as amazed and confused as Willas feels. "Arya, why didn't you come to me immediately? Did you think I would turn you away?"

* * *

Arya – she is alive she is alive she is alive – frowns suspiciously at the Tyrells before tugging Sansa down so she can whisper in her ear.

"I wanted to get you away without them knowing because I heard Rickon is alive."

Sansa jerks away then, horrified, because no, how could she-

"You mustn't say such wicked things," she says, feeling tears springing to her eyes. "How can you say that? Did you not hear what, what Theon did to Bran and Rickon?"

"There are rumours of a direwolf prowling White Harbour," Arya insists. "A great black direwolf that howls in the night, and sometimes there is a boy with him, a boy with red hair – it has to be Rickon, Sansa!"

"Rumours!" Sansa shrieks, suddenly furious because this is typical of Arya, ruining a perfect moment with something like this. There was always a chance, a tiny chance that Arya was alive because nobody ever saw her body, her corpse, but Bran and Rickon were burned and Theon had- "Theon Greyjoy killed our brothers and burned them and put their corpses on display for all to see! Rickon is dead, Arya-"

"He might not be!" Arya shouts back, apparently just as angry as Sansa. "And we are his pack, Sansa, he needs us-"

"Do you imagine that we three might take Winterfell back from the Boltons alone?" Sansa rages, trembling she's so angry. "How do you think it will go, Arya, do you dream of us presenting ourselves and the Boltons stepping aside because Winterfell is rightfully ours? Do not be naïve-"

"I am not stupid," Arya fumes, "but if we are with him, we can help him, you know that!"

"And if it is a trap?" Sansa snaps. "As far as the Lannisters know, I am the only Stark still living, and the Queen must know that if I were to hear of one of you, of any of you being alive, that I would-"

That I would run in my bare feet across the whole of Westeros to have you back with me, she thinks, but she cannot say it for some reason.

"It is a rumour," she grits out. "Nothing more."

"Of course you want to stay here," Arya snarls, and it is like a slap. "Here where everything is pretty and you have pretty dresses and you can laugh and smile and you have the kind of sisters you always wanted and a brother to replace Robb-"

"How dare you," Sansa gasps. "Nobody could ever replace Robb - how can you think that? And we may have fought, Arya, but you are my sister, and- do you truly think so little of me? Do you think I would choose anything over having you all back?"

* * *

"That's her sister, alright," Garlan whispers, "they fight like you and Loras used."

And that's true, but Willas is fixated on Sansa just now, on the brilliant fury and absolute pain in her face, on how much her sister is hurting her.

Is it possible that one of Sansa's brothers is alive? Surely not, not after Winterfell being taken twice, both times by celebrated murderers, but then again, a girl her sister's age and size should never have survived any time at all on the road, much less years, so who knows what is possible?

"We could send someone to White Harbour," Willas offers, cutting across whatever insult Arya is about to level at Sansa – he understands the virtues of allowing fights like this to run their course, but he can't stand to see Sansa hurting so, and therefore he feels that mayhaps this fight should have an altered course – and silencing them both. "Someone we trust, someone who could ascertain whether or not your brother truly is alive."

Arya smiles, but Sansa still looks doubtful.

"How can he be alive?" she asks in a voice so small and frightened that Willas' heart near breaks for her. If he could get to his feet now, he would go to her, but she kicked his bad leg in her panic and he can hardly move at all for the pain now. "If he is, he is just gone six years – he has spent half his life without us. How…"

She shakes her head, eyes closed as she struggles to regain her composure, and Willas turns to Father to create a distraction, to allow her a moment.

"Uncle Garth," he says. "He could go to White Harbour – if Sansa's brother is alive, it is in our interests to support him in retaking Winterfell, Father. You must see that – and Prince Aegon would doubtless rather have an ally than a Lannister puppet in the North."

"The Lannisters claimed to have sent you north to marry the new Lord of Winterfell, my lady," Father says, and Willas rolls his eyes because if Sansa says that this is her sister, Willas is becoming inclined to believe her, particularly after seeing the way they fight.

"That wasn't me," Arya says firmly. "I don't know who she was, but it wasn't me."

"This is my sister, my lord," Sansa insists, and Willas wants to throttle Father for sticking on this when there is a chance for an advantage to be pressed, one that can only advance their position in Prince Aegon's esteem. "I do not know if it is possible that my brother is alive – don't look at me like that, Arya, it is far-fetched and probably false – but even if he is not, Arya and I are rightful heirs to Winterfell, us and our sons. Mayhaps we should reach out to our bannermen…?"

"Last we knew, Stannis Baratheon was in the North," Garlan says quietly, unusually serious. "If he removes the Boltons from Winterfell, your bannermen may well want him for their king – if nothing else, he isn't the son of the man who supposedly kidnapped and raped your aunt, Sansa. He's not the Mad King's grandson."

"And he's just," Willas says, realising the truth of Garlan's words. "Damn it all, from what you've told me of your father, Sansa, he and Stannis had the same way of ruling – Stannis might be harsher, harder, but given all that's happened men will respect that. Damn it all."

* * *

Finding themselves with a problem that cannot be solved with wily manoeuvring seems to have flummoxed the Tyrells. Willas disappears off with Lord Mace to discuss things, and Sansa calls for a bath for Arya – one that is long, long overdue.

Arya struggles against Marian, though, fights when she realises that her breeches and tunic are going to be gotten rid of.

"I need clothes!" she argues, holding onto them, huddled in a robe that Marian produced from one of Sansa's chests. "What am I to wear-"

"We have clothes here," Sansa says firmly. "I-"

"You have skirts for me, you mean," Arya fumes. "Stupid cumbersome skirts-"

"Arya, please," Sansa begs, "Lord Mace still isn't convinced that you are who we say you are, please, just behave so he has no excuse to say anything. Please?"

"Why should I have to do what he wants?"

"Because he is my goodfather, and your host," Sansa says, trying for sternness but unsure if she achieves it. "You can have one of my nightgowns for tonight, but tomorrow we must find you skirts and things – women don't wear breeches here anymore than they did at Winterfell, Arya."

"But-"

"No buts," Marian says, appearing from behind the bathing screen and setting her hands on her hips. "You'll do what your sister says because she's the head of your House if not out of sense, child, but first you'll bathe and we'll see if we can't scrub some of that dirt out of your skin."

That makes Arya hesitate – "You won't make me wear a corset and things?"

"A child of your age in a corset?" Marian laughs. "Oh, my dear girl-"

"I'm near twelve," Arya says sharply. "You were happy to see my sister married at my age."

"Arya," Sansa soothes. "Please, we'll talk about my marriage later – please, let Marian help you bathe? Please?"

Arya looks as though she'll fight for a moment, but then she sighs and nods and, surprising Sansa, hugs her tight for a moment before darting behind the screen.

* * *

Later, when Arya is clean enough to at least look human, dressed in one of Sansa's nightgowns (it's far too long and gapes terribly about the neck – Sansa is still quite small through the chest, still slender despite the maturing curves of her body, hips and breasts and bottom where before she needed corsetry to define them, but even so she is far larger than Arya), Sansa guides her to sit on her bed. The sheets and blankets are tangled and messed, but Sansa thinks she can probably place the blame for that with Arya, given as how she'd woken up earlier to her sister, hooded and cloaked and with her skinny little sword bare in her hand, looming over her, kneeling on the empty side of the soft mattress.

"How did they convince you to say yes to marrying him?" Arya asks, and Sansa wants to laugh.

She does not, though.

"It was a good match," she says instead. "He will be Lord of Highgarden someday. It is a worthy match, better than anything I might have hoped for while under the Queen's control."

"He's a Tyrell, Sansa," Arya insists, brow furrowing. "They are on the Lannisters' side-"

"No," Sansa disagrees. "We- Willas and I, and Garlan and Leonette, we have been in Storm's End – with Aegon Targaryen."

Arya's mouth drops open, and she is apparently so stunned that she cannot speak. Sansa fidgets and fixes the blankets some, looking away before continuing.

"He has agreed to restore the Starks to Winterfell," she says quietly. "We- there were not even rumours of you or Rickon, so we agreed that mine and Willas' second son would inherit Winterfell-"

"Brienne says that he is a cripple," Arya goes on, face twisted in- what is that? Is it worry? Disgust? Sansa cannot tell, cannot read her little sister's face. "She says that his leg is ruined."

"It is," Sansa admits. "He cannot move his knee-"

"Why is it bandaged if it is an old hurt?"

"Maester Lomys broke the joint afresh to try and give Willas greater mobility," Sansa explains. "He usually relies on a cane, but he will be able to move about more if he can use crutches-"

"He will not be able to protect you on crutches," Arya breaks in. "Bad enough that he is one of them without him being useless."

The scars on Sansa's back itch and burn in that way they sometimes do, that way that can only really be soothed by the gentle touch of Willas' hand as he strokes his fingertips along her spine and that and the steady beat of his heart lulls her to sleep.

"He is not useless," she says sharply, looking up at Arya properly. "He is good and kind and clever, and he loves me and has kept me safe from Lannisters and from Prince Aegon, and he- he is a good man, Arya, a truly good man." She hesitates, something she has not yet told Willas but that she thinks he would appreciate on the tip of her tongue. "Father would have liked him."

"He's old and crippled and his family allied with the Lannisters, Sansa! His brother is on the Kingsguard!"

"Was," Sansa corrects. "Loras died while taking Dragonstone. And Willas is not old, he is just… older. That is all."

"He is far too old for you," Arya huffs, pulling her knees up to her chest and wrapping her arms around her legs. She looks cold, so without thinking Sansa takes the spare blanket from the end of the bed and makes to throw it around Arya's shoulders, but before she can Arya's hand is painfully tight on her wrist and-

"I- I am sorry, Sansa," she says, turning her head away as Sansa rubs at the red marks on her wrist. "I did not mean-"

"It is nothing," Sansa says quietly, her scars burning again, and her fingers flexed against her thighs as she settled back onto her heels. "Nothing at all."

"He's still too old for you," Arya says after a moment. "He must be twenty years-"

"Eleven," Sansa corrects. "He will be five-and-twenty on his next nameday, just after the next new moon. It is not so much – he is much closer to my age than Lord Arryn was to Aunt Lysa, after all, and there are many women not so lucky as me. He is kind, Arya, and he loves me so much, and-"

And he is clever and brushes my hair so gently and lets me sleep in his arms to keep the nightmares away, and he has the loveliest eyes and when he kisses me I feel like singing, and I had not felt like singing in so long before I came to Highgarden. So long.

Sansa does not know if Arya would understand such things, though, so she does not say them.

"But what if someone tries to hurt you?" Arya presses. "He's a cripple, Sansa!"

"He would kill any man that harmed me," Sansa says with absolute certainty. "It may not be quick or in a duel, but he would do it. For me. He would do anything for me, I think."

Confusion and incredulity edge into the suspicion on Arya's face, and her mouth twists.

"You love him, don't you?"

Sansa opens her mouth to object, but then she closes it – is it a lie to say that she loves Willas? She knows that she does love him, but had not thought that she loved him the way he loves her.

Would it have hurt so much to learn about his past if I did not love him?

"Not as much as he loves me," she tries, "but yes, I love him. He- when I thought I had lost everything, Arya, he gave me a home. When I thought all of you were dead, he gave me a family. How could I not love him?"

"You already have a home and a family," Arya says, but she seems less certain of it now. "Winterfell, and Rickon and me – we are your family."

"Willas is my family as well," Sansa says gently, reaching out carefully to take Arya's hand. "Just as Mother was a Tully but also a Stark, I am a Stark but also a Tyrell. Willas is my husband, Arya – we swore vows to one another before the gods. I cannot abandon him to go gallivanting off across Westeros after a rumour, surely you see that?"

"It would not take much to have your marriage set aside," Arya says thoughtfully. "If you married in a sept, it's simply a matter of writing to the High Septon once we are restored to Winterfell."

Sansa's cheeks burn, and she cannot quite look at Arya.

"It's rather more complicated than that, actually," she whispers, linking her fingers together in her lap and biting her lip, thinking of the hazy, soft-edged dream that Arya had interrupted when she woke Sansa earlier that night, a dream full of the familiar warmth of Willas' skin against Sansa's own, of how full she feels with him inside her, of the sound of her name on his lips as he gasps it desperately against her neck and she buries her face against the soft, short hair behind his ear that always smells of nothing and yet also of him-

"What do you mean by that?"

"Well," she says, searching for the correct words. Sansa is good with words, can almost always find the right thing to say, but this is not a situation she ever thought to find herself in. "He is my husband, Arya! We have been married for some time now, we- that is, he and I- oh, I am not a maiden, Arya!"

Arya makes a small, shocked noise, but when Sansa looks up she sees only fury.

"He raped you?!"

"What?! No! No, of course not! He would never- he is a good man, Arya! He would never force himself on me!"

"But if you-"

"I- It hurt the first time, because I was a maiden," Sansa admits, "but he did his best to make it not hurt before we-" She pauses and clears her throat delicately before continuing. "But he would not force himself on me, Arya. He never has, and I know he never would. When we- when he and I do- he always makes certain that it is what I want before he-"

Before he puts his hands on your skin, before he slides his lovely long fingers under your nightgown and under your smallclothes, before he kisses you as though you are the most delicious thing he has ever tasted-

"Well. He would never force himself on me, Arya. Not ever."

A sudden fear seizes her heart and she cannot breathe, cannot do anything but grab at Arya's hands and- and-

"Please tell me you were not-"

"No! No, I- I was safe. I was with Gendry most of the time, he made sure I was safe, and then… I was safe."

They both look up at the knock on the door, and Sansa pulls her robe back on before going to see who it is, belting it closed before lifting the latch.

"My lady," Willas says, and he's leaning so heavily on his crutches and looks so terribly tired that she almost leads him in to lie down before remembering their agreement and that Arya is sitting on her bed. "Do you have everything you need? Does Lady- Lady Arya have need of anything?"

Sansa glances back and Arya shakes her head.

"We are well, my lord," she says, stepping closer and pulling the door with her, shutting Arya out just a little, as if to shield Willas from the cruel things she said. "What news from your father? Will he allow my sister to stay?"

"Of course," he says, sounding surprised. "Sansa, Father would never have sent your sister away! No, it is Lady Brienne he is concerned with, and these rumours about your brother."

"He would prefer they were untrue, so there might be a Tyrell in Winterfell."

"He would prefer to know if there is any truth in them so he might consult with Lord Tarly about the possibility of taking the North now that winter has come," Willas corrects her, "but I will tell you everything in the morning – I am sure you and your sister have much to talk about, and I confess that I am in need of a few hours more sleep."

She touches his face, the shadowed skin under his eyes and the soft patch just above the edge of his beard, and then he leans down and presses a kiss to her brow.

"Goodnight, love," he murmurs, lips still against her skin. "Sleep well – we'll discuss what is to be done in the morning, I promise."


	21. Chapter 21

Sansa wakes the following morning with Arya burrowed tight against her side, warm and bony and blessedly alive, and she can hardly believe that it was not all a dream. It seems as though it should have been a dream, seems impossible that Arya could possibly be here beside her, but she is, one hand fisted in Sansa's nightgown and snoring quietly against her shoulder.

It must be sunny out, because her chambers are brighter than she is used to in the mornings. Then again, this room has larger windows that Willas' room does, and she is still not used to the differences between his bedchamber and her own.

She misses him, she realises, and she feels silly for it but it's true, she does, and so she slips out of bed – miraculously not waking Arya – and darts across to Willas' room, wondering why he left the door slightly open when he retired but not thinking much of it.

He's asleep as well, completely bare except for the blanket that's only just draped over his hips, his casted leg propped up on two pillows, and with his hair tangled like that he looks so much younger than he is.

He stirs just a little when she slips into bed beside him, just enough to wrap an arm around her, and he smells warm and sleepy and she can't help but curl close against him, because she wishes they'd never left Highgarden, that things were still sweet and simple and-

"I thought you were sleeping in the other room," he says, voice low and rough with sleep, and when he lifts his head his eyes are only half open and he's frowning in confusion. "Or is this a dream, do you think?"

"Not a dream," she whispers, pushing him back down and resting her head on his shoulder. "I missed you, that's all."

"I was dreaming of you," he says, nosing against her hair. "I always dream of you. Just you. Good dreams, those."

"I dream of you, too," she says quietly, leaning up and brushing her mouth against his as his eyes close. "I like those dreams best, I think."

He hums then, in satisfaction, she supposes, and he's asleep again before she even settles properly against him. She almost tells him that she loves him, but doing so when he's asleep seems cowardly, somehow, so instead she lets her eyes drift shut and dozes off in his arms.

* * *

Aldwin and Marian wake them together not long later, both looking smugly amused, and Sansa blushes bright pink as Marian ushers her away.

"Sleeping apart is going well, milord," Aldwin says mildly when he wakes Willas the third time, before turning away to the other side of the room. Willas is startled by smallclothes hitting him in the chest (he's hardly awake, so it's hardly fair), but Aldwin simply chuckles before moving on to search out a shirt and breeches. "Half a night without one another, well done to you both."

"Stop that," Willas says, feeling terribly groggy – he took the dreamwine last night when Maester Lomys offered it, knew he'd never get a moment of rest if he didn't because his leg was aching from Sansa's kick, and his head is woolly with it now – but still throwing aside the blankets so he can begin wrestling his smallclothes up over his cast. "Sansa could not sleep, that is all."

He's not at all sure that's why she was in bed with him when he awoke – he does not remember her joining him, and he's almost certain that she was to sleep in the other room with her sister. He remembers bidding her goodnight, and he's certain that he did so in the doorway of the other room. Still, he's not going to admit that to Aldwin, no more than he's going to give into the temptation to beg Sansa to come back to their bed (her pillow might smell of rosemary again, which will be a tiny consolation, at least).

"Her sister might come looking for you today," Aldwin warns, slipping under Willas' arm and holding him steady before helping him pull up his smallclothes. "Marian says the little one doesn't seem happy about you being married to milady Sansa."

"She'll get along marvellously with Prince Aegon, should they meet," Willas grouses, sitting down on the edge of the bed and rubbing his hands roughly over his face. "They can conspire to kill me off so Sansa might marry someone worthy of her-"

"Stop that," Aldwin chides, "and hurry along, you're to break your fast with your father, and you know he doesn't like to wait for his meals. He's waiting for you outside."

No indeed, Father becomes cranky when forced to wait for food, Willas knows that, so he heaves himself back up and begins tugging his breeches up over his cast.

* * *

"Lady Alerie is my goodmother," Sansa says sternly, combing carefully through Arya's hair and wondering at the mess of it – it's all different lengths, and matted and knotted so terribly she worries that her comb might lose a tooth. "And she is your hostess. You will show her the appropriate respect, Arya-"

"Why don't I just not speak at all, in case I offend one of your precious Tyrells?"

"If you wish to keep Lady Brienne safe, you'd do well not to alienate Lord Mace and Lady Alerie," Sansa warns. "Lord Mace was sincere in wanting to execute her last night, Arya."

"She didn't-"

"I believe you, but Lord Mace will not take Mother taking Lady Brienne into her service as sufficient evidence of her good character as I do. Please, Arya – you must behave. Everything is so precarious now-"

"Because the Lannisters are losing their grip-"

"I already told you that we have sworn to Prince Aegon at Storm's End!"

"His father stole our aunt, Sansa! He's a raper's son! A madman's son!"

Sansa hesitates a moment – Prince Aegon's cousins had been of the opinion that he was the image of his father, that Princess Arianne was the image of his mother, and Arya is so like their aunt Lyanna, if what Father and Uncle Benjen used say is true…

"Better him than the Lannisters," is all she says. "Now come, we must get you dressed-"

"Your gowns won't fit me," Arya points out, sounding relieved.

"Good thing you're not the only young lady of your size and shape to ever pass through Highgarden, then," Marian says, breezing in with a gown over her arms. "Lady Alla's near as small and skinny as you, and she didn't mind giving a gown for milady Sansa's sister – they're all eager to meet you."

Sansa bites her lip to keep from smiling at the notion of Arya sitting with Margaery and her companions during the day – she might get along well enough with Merry Crane, she supposes, but Megga and Elinor in particular will drive her mad. Mayhaps it would be best to keep her nearby, with Sansa herself and Lady Alerie and Leonette.

The gown in question is typical of Alla – a mass of delicate embroidery in soft shades of deep blue and golden-cream. Arya's looking at it with the same scepticism Sansa felt for some of the day gowns she was given upon her arrival at Highgarden, wondering how something so ornamental can possibly be meant for wearing all of the time, she doesn't doubt.

"It's lovely, Marian," she says, sitting down to brush her own hair while Marian helps Arya dress. "It will do nicely."

"I'll try pinning her hair when I have her dressed," Marian calls over her shoulder, and Sansa can't hide her smile this time as she watches Arya struggle against the gown through the mirror. "You get yourself ready, milady, and then I'll help with your stays and your gown."

* * *

"Did your wife say where her sister is hiding the Beauty?" Father asks, passing half a peach across to Willas once he's settled down and biting into the other half himself.

"No, Father," Willas sighs, reaching down to adjust his leg and shaking his head. "Sansa and I have barely spoken since her sister arrived. We will have to speak with Lady Arya today and ask that she tell us all she can."

"Well, where is the girl?"

"With Mother and Sansa and the rest," Willas says tiredly, setting down his knife when his hands begin to shake. Gods, if he could just sleep, but he hasn't had a decent night's sleep in weeks, longer. "We may speak to her after we've all eaten, Father. I'd like to ask her about this Gendry she mentioned, too – by the sounds of it, she's travelled an awful amount with him, which could make it difficult for her in a few years."

"Aye, that's true," Father muses, spreading butter on a cut of bread and handing it across the table without a word. Willas is thankful for his father's uncharacteristic tact, but he wonders how bad he must look to have prompted it in the first place.

Next he knows, Father and Garlan are standing on either side of him, Father's hand on his shoulder and both of them frowning concernedly down at him.

"Back to bed with you, my lad," Father says firmly, and Willas just about manages to open his eyes again when he blinks (damned dreamwine, he thinks, damned me for not taking poppy's milk when we were on the road to help me sleep, damned me for not listening to a word anyone said even when it would have been to my benefit). "Come along, up-"

One of them under either of his arms, and he's glad of it, because he doesn't think he'd manage his crutches, not when he feels as if he hasn't slept in a year, and his head lolls to the side so his temple is resting against Father's.

"I hate dreamwine," he opines, and he can hear Garlan laughing but doesn't particularly mind, because he supposes he must look quite silly. "I should have asked for poppy."

"You should have asked for poppy weeks past," Garlan corrects him, and Willas hums in agreement, still leaning his head against Father's and hopping along between them. The enforced drowsiness of the dreamwine has dragged his body's stockpiled fatigue up from wherever he'd been forcing it down to, and now he feels pleasantly dazed, nodding off standing up.

* * *

Willas smiling dopily while leaning on Father's shoulder is not something Garlan ever supposed to see, but now that it is happening he can't help but hate all the years when Willas could hardly stand to be in the same room as Father without reason – the years Willas bickered with everyone, especially if they offered him help, found offence in everything Loras did and Margie said, the years when Willas spent every day in the library and the music room and the stables and the aviary and the kennels, anywhere but the keep proper, sometimes not speaking to any of the family for days on end.

Still, anger at all that aside, Willas snuffling against Father's hair and smiling is more amusing than Garlan could possibly have imagined, and Father's fondly exasperated smile does little to help him to keep from laughing.

"I missed you," Willas slurs, head falling forward. "When was in t'High Tower. Didn' want to so got mad. M'sorry."

Garlan knows his father better than anyone might suspect, so the flash of pain in Father's eyes doesn't escape him any more than it surprises him. Willas might have been oblivious to it, but his anger hurt Father more than Father would ever admit – it didn't help that they're as stubborn as each other, foolishly headstrong and utterly convinced that they've been right the whole time.

Even Father laughs when Willas' head droops forward and he begins to snore quietly, hanging heavily from their shoulders, and they carry him the rest of the way into his bedchamber.

"He needs new boots," Father huffs as he tugs the offending boots off Willas' feet, holding them up for inspection with a frown. "Softer ones, mayhaps."

Willas snores on, oblivious, as Garlan works him out of his doublet.

"He needs sturdy boots for his ankle, Father," Garlan says firmly. "You know that. You know it's not been as strong since the accident."

"Well, if he's not going to be standing on it, why should he need support for it?"

"Leave the boots be, Father," Garlan says, rolling his eyes as he tugs Willas' shirt over his head and-

"Gods be good," Father says quietly. "When did he get so thin?"

Garlan can't speak, because while Willas has never been near so big as him – always closer to Loras' build, if broader in the shoulders and a bit taller – he's never been like this, ribs and collarbones and elbows sharp under clammy skin.

"He's not been eating properly," Garlan says, "but I didn't think he was this bad. I'll speak with Maester Lomys this afternoon. I… Mayhaps Sansa will know. I will speak with her, too."

Father nods once, sharply, mouth twisted the same way Willas' goes when he's worried, and then he strides from the room, presumably before Garlan is supposed to be able to see that he's upset.

"Fool," Garlan says to Willas, pulling the blankets up and shaking his head. "Both of you, but I think most especially you, big brother."

Uncle Garth is with Father in the outer room – Garlan has never liked the Lord Seneschal, trusts him even less because of the way he behaves towards Leonette (and Sansa, he has no doubt), but he is damned good at his work, and has been invaluable all these years in keeping Father from bending completely to Grandmother's will.

"Scouts have been sent out to look for the Maid of Tarth," Father says once Garlan has closed the door to Willas' chamber. "If she is nearby-"

"I thought we were speaking with Lady Arya?" Garlan asks, folding his arms with a frown. "We owe her Sansa's sister's life-"

"And she took Renly's," Father points out. "Enough, lad, we'll speak of it when we have her. For now, I think we ought find out what the girl was doing all this time – someone must have given her refuge, surely? A child her age could never have survived alone-"

Garlan moves to have something to eat while Father rambles, partially because he's hungry (and because boxes of apples arrived from Cider Hall yesterday, and no matter Highgarden's claims to growing the finest of everything, Garlan has never had anything to rival the apples from Leonette's home), but partially because he thinks Father is wrong. There is something hard about Sansa's sister, something that worries Garlan a little because he doesn't recognise it, doesn't understand it, and he wonders if it might end up causing harm to someone he loves.

He leaves Father and Uncle Garth to their plotting – because it's always plotting, with those two – and climbs the stairs two at a time on his way to Mother's rooms, wondering if Sansa's sister might be able to offer some form of proof as to Lady Brienne's innocence. Garlan saw the way the Maid of Tarth looked at Renly, after all, and he cannot imagine Lady Brienne ever harming Renly – despite her appearance, she has a gentle heart, that he is sure of, and while she is as deadly with blade in hand as any man he knows and more so than most, he cannot imagine any circumstances in which she would turn that blade on Renly.

Garlan has been of the opinion – shared with none save Leonette and Mother – that there truly was an assassin in Renly's pavilion that night, although he doesn't believe this shadow nonsense. Leonette agrees that it was likely some agent of either Stannis Baratheon or the Lannisters, most likely the Lannisters because the killer's efficiency implies the work of a Faceless Man, and they do not come cheap. He would not have thought it of Lady Brienne, but the only reasonable explanation is that she failed in her duty to protect her king, and her pride would not allow her to admit to it – hence the absurd shadow killer tale.

He sets that aside for now, down beside his worries for Willas, and he's smiling when he pushes open the double doors of Mother's solar. He's always loved sitting with her here – mostly because he loves her company, but also because it's such a lovely room to simply sit in, with the high north-facing windows that leave the room cool in the summer heat, and the sweet-smelling clematis creepers on the walls outside.

"Good morning, my ladies," he calls, sweeping a bow and knowing without looking that Leonette is rolling her eyes to the heavens. "Each one of you looking fairer than ever, I must say."

"Oh, stop being silly and sit down," Mother chides, but she's smiling and gesturing to the empty seat to her right. "I had hoped your Father and Willas might…?"

"Father is speaking with Uncle Garth," Garlan tells her, nudging Leonette's shoulder with his hip as he passes, "and Willas has gone back to bed-"

"Is he unwell?"

How Willas can possibly doubt that Sansa is as besotted by him as he is by her escapes Garlan, because everyone else that sees them either with one another or speaking of one another knows full well that they're mad for each other.

"He's fine," he promises her, taking his seat and immediately reaching for one of the slices of apple on Mother's plate. "The dreamwine – it always struck him harder than most. Maester Lomys offered him some last night because his leg was paining him, and he fell asleep in the middle of speaking with Father at table."

"He's always been soft for it," Mother clucks, thwacking him over the knuckles with the flat of her knife when he reaches for more apple. "But poppy makes him queasy – Garlan, there are plenty of apples on the table, please refrain from stealing mine!"

"But they are all the sweeter for being yours, Mother," he teases, ducking when she swipes at his head. "If it bothers you so, I will impose upon my lady wife-"

"You will have an apple of your own and be happy with it," Leonette says firmly, tossing one – glossy deep red, his favourite – across the table to him. "Now, tell us whatever it was that drove you to seek out our company."

"I cannot simply enjoy spending time with my favourite ladies-"

"Do stop, Garlan," Mother advises him, pouring tea for him from her little silver pot. "Did your father send you to us?"

"I come bearing information," he says, sniffing the tea and adding honey before even considering sipping it. "Uncle Garth has sent out scouts to search for the Lady Brienne – do you think, Lady Arya, that it is likely they will find her easily?"

"No," Sansa's sister says, and Garlan can see the same exasperation he and Willas always felt when Loras spoke out of turn making Sansa frown. "Because she's already on her way here – I sent Gendry to fetch her before I went to Sansa."

"She must know that my father intends to execute her for Lord Renly's murder," Garlan says thoughtfully, looking Lady Arya square in the eye. "Her loyalty to you is admirable."

"She swore a vow to our mother than she would see us safe," Lady Arya says, and there is a definite challenge in the way she leans forward over the table – Garlan wonders if she knows how to use that little sword she was wearing last night – but Sansa's hand on her arm seems to soothe her. "She is a good and honourable woman – better than most knights."

"Well that your goodbrother and I are lords, then," Garlan says mildly. "And that Brienne of Tarth is no ser, either. I imagine she will fit right in, here at Highgarden – we value knightly virtues above knightly vows, you see. They seem more useful, after all."

Mother very firmly sets a peach on his plate and he ducks his head, smiling just a little, and says no more.

* * *

Brienne of Tarth is the tallest woman Sansa has ever seen, and even through the dirt and filth on her face it is plain that she is not pretty, but she looks at Sansa with such astonishment that Sansa hardly notices her crooked teeth.

"This is my sister," Arya says, and Lady Brienne simply nods and bows at the waist like a man. "Sansa, this is Brienne."

"It is an honour, my lady," Sansa says, dipping a curtsy – not as deep as Lady Brienne's bow, of course, but deeper than she might otherwise have given to someone of Lady Brienne's rank, because the woman before her is the one who returned Arya to her – and smiling. "My sister speaks very highly of you. She says you knew our mother?"

And it is hard, so impossibly hard to speak of Mother with a smile on her face, and when Lady Brienne's face twists with grief Sansa can hardly force away the urge to slap her. Who is she to mourn their mother? What did she lose when Lady Catelyn Stark was slaughtered at the Twins?

But Sansa knows her courtesies, so her smile remains and she even goes as far as to offer her hands to Lady Brienne, who takes them and clasps them tight.

"You are her image, my lady," she says uncertainly. "She was a great lady. It was my honour to serve her."

The moment is ruined by Lord Mace's emergence from the castle, flanked by guardsmen and trailed not only by Garlan and Lady Alerie, but also by a slightly dazed looking Willas on his crutches.

"Arrest-"

"She didn't kill him!" Arya explodes, jumping in front of Lady Brienne and spreading her arms. "She is innocent-"

"Father, listen to reason," Garlan insists, stepping forward and standing beside Arya. "Why would Lady Brienne have sworn herself to Renly only to murder him? Why would she do so while Lady Stark was present as a witness? It makes no sense!"

"My mother would not have taken a vow of fealty from a murderer, my lord," Sansa offers, folding her hands together nervously. "She wouldn't, I swear it to you."

"I don't know that there was a shadow in Renly's pavilion," Garlan says firmly, holding out a hand when Lord Mace moves forward, "but I cannot see that Lady Brienne would raise a hand against him – you know it to be true, Father. Her devotion to him was equal even to Loras'."

Lord Mace hesitates just long enough for Garlan to turn and bow to Lady Brienne, motioning for her to follow him when he walks back towards the keep.

"You will be a guest here," he says, ignoring Lord Mace's protests and guiding Lady Brienne inside. "We have you to thank for Lady Arya's safe arrival, I am told?"

Sansa looks away from them only when Willas arrives at her side, biting his lip to keep from laughing and looking slightly less dazed but still very, very sleepy.

"You should not have risen," she says softly, reaching up to brush sleep-dust from his eyes, blushing when he leans into her hand.

"Garlan thought Father was going to be more difficult," he says, eyes drifting shut when she runs her hand back into his hair. "I was supposed to be reinforcements, if I could stay awake long enough."

"You should return to bed," she suggests. "Lady Alerie said-"

"That I'm soft for dreamwine?" he guesses, but instead of being annoyed as she thought he might be, he smiles and shakes his head. "I suppose I am, really. I rather think that this is as much the past month catching me up as the dreamwine, though – I'm just so tired, Sansa. Tired right through."

It's not until someone clears their throat – Lord Mace, as it turns out – that Sansa remembers that they are not alone. Arya is looking at them in a way that makes Sansa's cheeks flush hot, but Willas just smiles a little and shakes his head.

"Would you accompany me, my lady?" he asks, turning back for the doors. "I think it might be best that I have someone with me lest I fall asleep standing again-"

"Not just yet, my lad," Lord Mace says, and Sansa drops her hand from Willas' face, pursing her lips when he huffs in disapproval. "I'd like at least one of you boys with me when we meet this other companion of your goodsister's."

"Father, I'm only in my shirtsleeves," Willas protests. "At least have him brought before you inside somewhere – it's quite cool out, you know."

As if to emphasise his point, Willas shivers, and Lord Mace frowns before swinging off his light cloak and draping it around Willas' shoulders.

"There," he says, "now come along – I had Garth find the lad earlier, he's waiting for us."

* * *

Willas just about manages to keep his balance as he follows Father, is just about aware of Sansa to his right and Mother to his left and Lady Arya behind him, but he manages, and the cold is just sharp enough to clear his head somewhat.

"Are you liking Highgarden, Lady Arya?" he asks back over his shoulder, blinking rapidly when his vision spots as his balance shifts. "Have you need of anything?"

"It's very nice," she says, and there is a careful diplomacy in her tone that Willas thinks he recognises from the early days of his and Sansa's marriage, something he mislikes very much.

"We are at your disposal," he assures her. "Our hospitality is famed, and you are after all next to family, now-"

"I have everything I need," she says sharply, and Willas doesn't miss the way Sansa flinches at her sister's harsh tone. "I will let my sister know if I need anything else."

They go the rest of the way in silence, but Willas can see that Sansa is bothered by something – if she fears that her sister's sharpness offended him, she needn't worry, but he suspects it's more to do with this young man they're about to meet, who-

"Gods," Willas breathes after an awkwardly protracted silence. "It's uncanny."

"It is a he," Lady Alerie says sternly, "What did you say your name was, my boy?"

"I didn't," says Renly-but-not in an accent so rough Renly would have mocked it. "It's Gendry, though," he grumps, scuffing his worn boots on the flagstones under his feet. "Gendry Waters."

"You are speaking to the Lady of Highgarden," Father snaps. "Show her some respect, boy."

Comprehension dawns, and pity with it – given the late King Robert's reputation, how much Lady Arya's friend looks like Renly, and that name, he can only be a bastard. A royal bastard, true, but a bastard nonetheless, of no real account because he is unacknowledged, unclaimed. As far as Willas is aware, Robert Baratheon only ever claimed one bastard, the one he had by the foolish Florent woman, Delena, and that boy was raised at Storm's End.

"You have our sincerest thanks," Sansa says earnestly, stepping forward. "Arya is my sister, the only blood kin left to me – I owe you a great debt."

"Was just doing what was right," he grumbles, and Willas frowns slightly – who is he to speak to Sansa, the future Lady of Highgarden, in such a way? Sansa herself seems unperturbed, and Lady Arya is standing halfway between her sister and the bastard, as if her loyalties are torn – as if she expects Sansa to behave in a way she won't like, or as if she expects the bastard to harm Sansa, he's not sure which.

"Arya says that you were a smith's apprentice, in King's Landing – are you any good?"

"I apprenticed with Master Mott," the bastard says, standing up straight and proud. Willas is surprised by both – Tobho Mott is the finest smith in King's Landing, so Loras always said, and for a bastard boy to have been given an apprenticeship must be a mark of truly unusual skill. "I'm better than good."

Willas isn't sure he likes that arrogance, but he's unsurprised when Sansa suggests to Father that mayhaps a place can be found with their smith for the bastard, even less surprised when Father agrees – it's a neat solution, tidily rewards the bastard without having to actually interact with him to any great deal, and there is future gain for House Tyrell in having him there.

He is surprised by the way the bastard glances to Sansa's sister before accepting, just as Brienne of Tarth had looked worried while Garlan was leading her inside until Lady Arya nodded. There is something not quite right about the whole thing, and Willas intends on speaking to his goodsister to find out just what that is.

First, he thinks as he lets Father under one arm and Uncle Garth under the other when he loses his balance, he'll go back to bed. Maybe after a few more hours sleep, he'll be able to think straight and stand up at the same time.


	22. Chapter 22

Sansa spends the afternoon with Arya, which is both everything she thought never to have again and everything that makes her want to grind her teeth, because if anything, Arya's manners have worsened during their time apart.

"Please," she pleads in a whisper. "Arya, please-"

"What use is knowing how to embroider?" Arya snaps, not even bothering to keep her voice down as she throws down her hoop and needle and fidgets with the bodice of her gown. Alla is sitting across the room, beside Margaery, and she frowns prettily (Alla does everything prettily) to Arya.

"Is the gown to your liking, my lady?" she asks, and then flinches back sharply from the vicious glare Arya throws at her.

Sansa wonders who she's to be more annoyed with – Alla, for being silly, or Arya, for being rude. She decides on both.

"My sister is unused to gowns, I fear," she says lightly, or at least as lightly as she can manage given how angry she is. "There was little time for her to dress nicely while she was hiding on the road to avoid those who would see all of House Stark dead."

"Oh, Sansa," Megga gasps, clapping one dainty hand over her mouth. "Surely you don't imagine anyone could want you dead?"

"If you believe that, Megga, you are a far sillier girl than even I imagined," Lady Alerie says sharply. "We will not speak of such things, particularly not if you girls are to behave so foolishly – you know better than that, Lady Olenna has made certain of it, and you would do well to exercise what sense the gods saw fit to give you, child."

Arya looks surprised – she clearly was not expecting anyone to jump to her defence at all, much less Lady Alerie – but Sansa is grateful. She manages a smile before motioning for Arya to follow her and leaving the room, squeezing Lady Alerie's fingers as she passes.

Lady Alerie winks, and Sansa manages another smile.

"I do not know what you went through while we have been apart," she says, dragging Arya into one of the unused rooms just down from Lady Alerie's, "but neither do Alla or Megga – you cannot expect everyone to-"

"Oh, of course you defend them," Arya huffs, sitting down on the floor and wrapping her arms around her knees. "Because they know how to behave-"

"I am not defending them," Sansa sighs, dropping to her knees beside Arya. "I am trying to help you understand that they don't understand what you've been through any more than they understand what I-" She has to stop and clear her throat before continuing. "They have never known pain, Arya. Not true pain."

Marian and Willas are the only ones who have seen Sansa's scars, and Marian has never mentioned them. Willas hasn't either, of course, and she knows that that is only because he worries that speaking of what she endured under Joffrey's dubious care will distress her, but she knows that the way his fingers drift whisper-soft across her ruined skin, has felt how much he wishes he could ease her pain in the way he holds her close and strokes her hair when her nightmares drive her to tears at night.

"You were held in the Red Keep," Arya says suspiciously, lifting her head and frowning. "Who there would have…?"

"You do not think that the Kingslayer was the sole false knight of the Kingsguard, surely?" Sansa asks bitterly, her back itching and wishing more than anything that she could just run to Willas, but he is asleep, needs to sleep, and she cannot disturb him. "You are not the only one who bears marks of our time apart, Arya."

"You mean-"

"Joffrey had the Kingsguard beat me, yes. And half strip me before the whole of court, too. He was more unkind than even your dire opinion of him could have convinced any of us, I think."

"But you were a hostage," Arya says, clearly confused. "A valuable hostage – surely it was in his best interests to treat you well?"

"Oh, probably, but Joffrey enjoyed hurting me too much to care about such things. At least he never… At least I was still a maid coming into Willas' bed."

"You should still be a maid," Arya spits suddenly, and Sansa's head jerks up at how sharp her sister's tone is. "He should never have touched you-"

"The Lannisters – well, the Queen, at least – were working to tame the Faith, to turn them away from the Tyrells. A false, unconsummated marriage between Willas and I, that would have helped the Lannisters' case."

"He still should not-"

"Arya, I have already told you – he never laid a hand on me unless he was certain it was what I wanted! Not once!"

That achingly sweet kiss he stole the other morning springs vividly to mind, dizzying her for an instant, the memory of Willas filling her every sense completely, but she quickly shakes her head to dispel it.

"I… I enjoy sharing a bed with Willas," she forces out, blushing hot to admit such a thing aloud. Ladies are supposed to endure the marriage bed, Sansa was always taught that to find pleasure there was unseemly, obscene, even, but Willas pursues her pleasure even more determinedly than his own, and she is quite helpless under his hands and mouth, seems to derive as much pleasure from pleasuring her as he does when he lets her have a moment to pleasure him. "I never thought I would, not after the things I was… told in King's Landing, but I do, Arya."

"Is it because you love him?"

"I suppose a little," Sansa admits. "He is… He is a good man, Arya. The best I've known except Father."

"And Robb and Jon," Arya challenges sharply, and Sansa has to bite back the cruel accusation that Robb valued his crown more than he did them, because he did not trade the Kingslayer for them. He promised he would always save me she thinks, remembering their games as children, but he didn't, he didn't. She chooses instead to say nothing, because Robb was their brother, and she loved him, and it would not be well to speak ill of the dead.

"You are so determined to hate everyone here, Arya," Sansa says at last. "But they… You need to be careful of most of them, save Lady Alerie and Leonette and Garlan and Willas, but they will not do anything to bring either of us to harm. I know they won't."

We are much too valuable for that.

* * *

Willas is more alert than he was when last awake when Sansa's sister walks into his study, a tiny cubby of a room off his and Sansa's sitting room. There's something entirely brazen about Arya Stark, a challenge in everything from her walk to the set of her jaw to the whiteness of her tightly clenched knuckles.

"Lady Arya," he says, not looking up from his letters – from Grandfather and Baelor, telling him much the same thing twice over – and motioning for her to take the other chair. "How may I be of assistance?"

"My sister," she says, standing just inside the arch rather than taking a seat. "What do you want of her?"

He looks up then, looks up and laughs in surprise.

"I'm not sure I understand what you mean, my lady," he says, nonplussed by the question. "She is my wife – am I supposed to want something of her?"

"You wanted Winterfell – you wanted her claim, nothing more-"

"My father wanted Sansa's claim," he corrects. "I… When we were wed first, I wanted only to save her from whatever fate the Lannisters had in mind for her. But then I came to love her, and now I want only for her to be happy."

"And yet you keep her here," Arya Stark snarls, and Willas is taken aback by something that looks alarmingly like hatred in his goodsister's eyes.

"You think Sansa would be safer elsewhere?" he points out. "Where would you have me send her, my lady? To Riverrun, which is occupied by Lannisters and Freys? Or mayhaps to Storm's End, to Prince Aegon, or to King's Landing, back into the Lannisters' hands – or to Sunspear, where House Martell would surely welcome a Lady Stark with open arms, mayhaps? Oh, wait, I know! I should send her north, to chase a rumour that may well be a trap set by Lannisters or Boltons to lure her to the North where she will, if it is a trap, likely be wed to Ramsay Bolton-"

"Ramsay Snow-"

"- in order to legitimise his claim to Winterfell! Have I won the game, Lady Arya? Have I proved to you that I am truly a mercenary fool because rather than sending your sister to any of the many places that would mean either death or being wed to someone who I can assure you would never treat her near so well as I do, I have kept her here? Because clearly the only reason that I would do such a thing is to be sure of keeping her claim to Winterfell and the North for House Tyrell."

"How am I supposed to know you love her?" she demands, and gods but if she weren't Sansa's sister he's not sure he'd be able to stop himself from slapping her - how dare she question his feelings for Sansa? How dare she accuse him of a deceit that he is completely incapable of?

"How am I supposed to trust that you won't bring her to harm when you refuse to tell the truth of what you've been doing since you left King's Landing?" he bites back, heaving himself up on his crutches and standing over her, forcing her to crane her neck back if she wants to keep glaring at him like that. "You demand everything of my family and I - and yes, I do consider Sansa a part of my family - and yet you are completely unwilling to make even a single concession. Have I done anything to give you cause to doubt that I love your sister? Has Sansa given any indication that I have mistreated her at all?"

He ignores a twinge of guilt at the memory of Sansa's suddenly pale face when confronted with his foolish anger and presses on.

"I adore your sister," he says sharply, too angry to even be embarrassed at how open he is being. "I would give anything to have her happy - your presence in Highgarden makes her happy. You and I fighting would make her unhappy, so I would ask that you avoid my study, if you could. I do not see that we will be able to get along, considering your opinion of me is so low and my opinion of you is that you are a lying brat who is unwilling to see her sister happy unless it is on your terms."

"How dare you-"

"I think the question is how dare you attack me in my home, where I have kept your sister safe for well over a year now, and think that you are in the right!" he snaps. "I understand that I am far from an ideal husband for Sansa, believe me, I do – I am too old, I am a cripple, I am nothing at all like the knights she doubtless dreamed of, but I love her, Lady Arya, with all my heart. She is everything to me."

* * *

Garlan likes his brother's wife very much, but he wonders if mayhaps he should have trusted her slightly less easily given that she has concealed Willas' condition from them all.

"He looks as though he's not eaten a proper meal in weeks," he says as they walk along the eastern cloister, the ground slippery with rain and sludgy fallen petals and leaves that the gardeners have yet to clear away. "He's skin and bone, little sister."

"He hasn't," she says, long fingers appearing from beneath her cloak for a moment as she pulls it closer around herself. "Eaten a proper meal, that is. He picks at his food unless I all but put it in his mouth myself – the poppy makes him sick, and the pain makes him sick, and the hunger makes him sick... I've had Marian ask the kitchens to prepare broth like we used take when we were ill, at Winterfell, but I don't know if he'll take it."

"Why did you keep it a secret?" Garlan asks, catching her elbow when she slips. "Sansa, you must realise how delicate Willas' health is at the moment!"

"Of course I realise that," she snaps sharply, eyes hard in a way that Garlan never thought to see on Sansa, and then she turns her head away. "But you must realise how stubborn and proud he is – the idea of me telling you that he is weak and ill now would infuriate him, and..."

"He did not mean that, Sansa. He would never have actually laid a hand on you."

"I know," she sighs. "But you surely understand, Garlan – he is my husband. His health is my utmost concern now, aside from my sister. Everyone pestering him about eating is only likely to make him angry, and if he is angry he is less likely to eat. I am doing my best, but he is so unwell and hates to send for Maester Lomys for something to settle his stomach, and... I am doing my best!"

"He accepted dreamwine last night, Sansa! He has not taken dreamwine almost since his accident because he fears we will take his leg while he is insensate! Your best-"

"Is not good enough, I know that," she hisses. "Do you think me foolish, Garlan? I can see better than you how ill my husband is, though you have my thanks, my lord, for bringing your concerns to my attention."

He blinks in surprise as she storms away, the end of her heavy braid bouncing against her back, and wonders if mayhaps he overstepped.

* * *

Sansa slips into Willas' bedchamber that night before dinner, and she's not quite certain what to make of the sight of him in the bath with his bad leg propped up on a high stool.

"Maester Lomys insists," he says sheepishly, taking her hand as she sinks to her knees on the floor by the tub. "To keep my cast dry – another five and a half weeks of this, and then hopefully I should be somewhat better off."

"It will be worth it," she assures him, folding her arms on the rim of the bath and leaning closer, settling more comfortably. "You will be much easier without having to strain your leg just to get from place to place."

"I was thinking that we might move upstairs," he suggests, sitting up straighter and leaning in towards her. "I should be able to manage the stairs, once I get my strength back, and the rooms up there are nicer. More fitting for you, I think."

"Willas-"

"I know that you are happy with these rooms, but the ones upstairs – the ones that would be ours if we moved up – they are better suited, I think. You would have a solar to yourself, because I would have a study, and-"

"But I like sitting with you in the evenings," she says, and it's true – he often shares things from his correspondances with her, and she likes that he trusts her so (even if he does not trust her with himself, but it is better than nothing, better than being told that she is a stupid, foolish, idiotic-)

The touch of his hand on her face draws her back, and his eyes are full of concern, his lip caught between his teeth.

"You disappeared," he says quietly. "The way you do after a nightmare."

"I- I was just-"

"It's alright, love," he soothes, his hand slipping back into her hair and drawing her closer, pressing her brow to his. "Hush now, it's alright, come here-"

He smells of soap and warmth and lavender (he was with Lady Olenna for some reason, then, or she was with him), and she closes her eyes and breathes him in because even just being this close to him helps calm her when Joffrey or Cersei sneak out of the shadows in the back of her mind and make her hands shake.

"Garlan said he spoke with you today," he says softly, and when she opens her eyes his are closed and he's smiling. "He is afraid that he offended you – I told him that it was up to him to apologise if he had, that I would not make excuses for poor behaviour on his part when I have enough of my own to make up for."

"Arya said she hopes she offended you," Sansa laughs, the tip of her nose brushing his and she aches to kiss him, but she is not sure if such a gesture would be welcome. She has missed kissing him very much since they fought – since he become really ill, actually, because he has fallen asleep the moment his head hit the pillow since they arrived at Storm's End, unless the pain was keeping him up, and she is still shy of being affectionate outside their bed in the way he sometimes is. She likes to keep that closeness between just the two of them, does not want to share it with anyone else. "I feel as though I ought apologise for her."

"She meant well, I think, although I fear my temper did snap," he whispers, and oh, his mouth is just there, his words are warm against her lips, and he tastes so good when she leans just a little closer and he sighs into her mouth as his tongue slips against her own and his hand tightens in her hair and she twists her fingers into his-

"Oh," he gasps, pulling away. "Sansa, your hair-"

The end of her braid fell into his bathwater, and for some reason she finds herself giggling uncontrollably as she rises to her feet and reaches for the soap, pushing back her sleeves and moving to stand behind him.

"It will dry," she says, tipping a jug of water over his head and scrubbing the soap into his hair, which is in dire need of a good wash. She giggles some more when he begins making those funny humming noises while she scrubs his scalp, tipping his head back into her hands and all but purring with pleasure.

He stops purring when she tips another jug of water over his head to wash away the soap, but then he dunks his head under the water, scrubs his hair clear and then sits up and-

"Willas!" she shrieks, turning away when he shakes his head like a wet dog and showers her with soapy water. "Willas, stop!"

He's laughing, though, truly laughing as he hasn't in so long, and that alone makes her laugh and fall to her knees beside the bath again, makes her throw her arms around his neck and pull him to her for another kiss, because she has missed him so much, as he was when they wed, as he was before they went to Storm's End.

"I am sorry, love," he chuckles, nuzzling into her neck and winding his arm around her as best he can while still sitting in the bathtub. "Could you fetch me my crutches so I might get out? I don't need Aldwin quite yet, if you wouldn't mind helping a little."

So she does – she helps him settle heave himself upright, helps him keep his cast out of the water, wraps a towel around his hips and tries not to fret about how sharply his hipbones jut under his too-pale skin, the hollow of his belly where before there was a soft little bit of fat that she was oddly fond of – and walks with him to the bed, sits beside him and gladly lets him take her face in his hands and draw her mouth back to his.

And then, just before he can kiss her, he turns away to yawn, and that like just about everything else is hysterically funny, and they lean into one another and giggle like children until Aldwin knocks on the door to send Sansa to Marian and to help Willas dress for dinner.

"Come sit with me tonight," he implores, catching her hand before she can move away. "After your sister has gone to sleep, come sit with me a time – I am making a bad show of wooing you by sleeping away the day, aren't I?"


	23. Chapter 23

"He ate plenty tonight," Garlan remarks quietly as he escorts Sansa and Arya away from Lady Alerie's rooms, where they retired after dinner. Arya seemed to like Willas' aunt, Lady Janna, well enough, which is something, she supposes. Sansa spent the entire time talking quietly with Lady Alerie about Willas' health and, to her surprise, Lord Mace's.

"Mace has a bad chest," Lady Alerie had confided, and Sansa quickly realised that this was something not many at Highgarden knew. In fact, she would not be surprised if Willas and Garlan were ignorant of their father's deteriorating health. "Maester Lomys is talented at his crafts, but I sometimes wonder if it will ever be enough."

Sansa feels the same way about Willas – Garlan's words are true, Willas' appetite does seem to have returned, but there's a nagging worry that won't let her be, that makes her wonder if mayhaps there is something else. Could the strain of bearing his injury be sapping his strength enough to cause serious harm, regardless of how much and how often he eats?

Highgarden is abundant in ways Sansa never even dreamed were possible before she arrived, but she still worries that even in that abundance there is nothing that can help or heal her husband, who had to excuse himself early from dinner so Maester Lomys could do something or other with the cast binding his leg in place.

"He did," she agrees just as quietly, squeezing his arm to reassure him – and feeling silly for doing so, because Garlan is four-and-twenty, his nameday just a short week before her own, and he is a lord in his own right, a warrior of great reknown, and he hardly needs his brother's woman-child wife to sooth his fears, surely? "He ate a great deal more than I did, that is for certain."

Garlan grins at that, but Arya seems confused – she has not been privy to Willas' health for long, Sansa supposes, so it wouldn't make much sense to her, really.

"He'll be challenging you for the last of Leonette's apples before his nameday, just you wait and see," she teases, more cheerfully than she really feels, but it makes Garlan laugh and, when he bows to her and Arya at the door of her and Willas' rooms, he is still smiling.

"Why wouldn't your husband be eating?" Arya asks, and while her continued insistence on not calling Willas by his name, despite Sansa's insistence, irritates Sansa a little, her concern is a good sign.

"The pain and the poppy's milk both turn his stomach," Sansa says, guiding Arya into the other bedchamber, unable to stop herself from glancing across at the door to her and Willas' chamber. Come sit with me tonight, and she fully intends on doing so, just as soon as she can settle Arya and fix her own hair. "It makes it difficult for him to eat, sometimes. He's lost a great deal of weight that he did not need to lose, and we are all quite worried." I am in particular, Sansa thinks, and then feels guilty – Willas' family are worried as well, she just wonders if mayhaps they are worried wrong. She does not think that any of them truly understand that it is as much the terrible melancholy that gives him nightmares he does not remember having as much as the physical maladies brought on by his leg that has weakened him so.

"He is better, though," she says, as much to reassure herself as to stamp down on Arya's probable insistence that Willas is an unsuitable husband for Sansa due to his being crippled. "Much better than he was – his leg isn't troubling him near so much, I don't think." I hope. "And he did clear his plate at dinner tonight." There wasn't much on it to begin with, but it is a start, I suppose. "He's asked me to sit with him for a little while tonight, if you don't mind?"

"Does it matter very much if I do, or shall you sit with him regardless?"

Sansa takes a deep breath, forcing herself to remain calm.

"I shall tell him that you have need of me if you wish me not to sit with him," she says at last, and it hurts her heart to say it because she desperately wants to sit with Willas, wants to talk properly with him now that he's so much brighter, so much more himself.

* * *

The door creaks twice, and then the air is sharp with rosemary and Sansa is slipping under the blankets to curl against his side.

"Hello, love," he sighs, pulling her close and kissing her brow. "Your sister is settled?"

"Asleep the moment her head touched the pillow," Sansa murmurs, and he can hear how much that seems to amuse her. "I think it is partly the relief of having a proper bed to sleep in after so long travelling, but I never remember her being such a deep sleeper before."

"I remember when Loras came home, after squiring with Renly Baratheon," he tells her, shifting as best he can to ensure her comfort, "he slept for near a week without waking except to eat and use the privy, and when we asked, he said it was because he hadn't gotten a proper night's sleep since going to Storm's End – the wind kept him up, apparently."

Renly Baratheon had kept Loras up too, Willas knows, and the ache that always throbs when he thinks of Loras, that he is always careful to ignore because he is simply too exhausted to sort through it just now, twists sharply – Loras was his brother, and Renly was his friend, and they are both gone now.

"Has Lady Brienne been accomodated fittingly?" she asks, moving until she's lying mostly on top of him, folding her arms so she can rest her chin on her forearm and look down at him as they talk. "I know that Lord Mace-"

"Garlan and I spoke with Father before dinner," he assures her. "Lady Brienne will not be executed if we can stop it, sweetling. You have my word on that."

He wonders if he ought to approach the source of the tension that lingers just beyond the bounds of their easy comfort and conversation, but it is so nice to just lie here with Sansa in his arms that he can't quite manage it.

"Loras always thought that she was in love with Renly," Willas remembers. "Lady Brienne, I mean – oh, if only she'd known..."

"Known what?"

Willas lifts his head to look at Sansa, and is amazed by the genuine curiosity in her eyes. Surely she heard the rumours? She lived in King's Landing for long enough, and during a time when all possible means of blackening opinion of Renly would have been engaged, surely?

"Renly was..." He casts about helplessly, searching for a way to say more interested in buggering my brother than lying with any woman, although Brienne of Tarth is manly enough to have been the best chance a woman ever stood of tempting him, I suppose. "He was uninterested in women, Sansa."

Her eyes go wide, her mouth opening just a little, and then her brow creases in serious consideration.

"You mean he-"

"Preferred men, yes," Willas confirms. "Or mayhaps just preferred Loras, I know not – but it was through his and Loras' closeness that my family were able to influence him and forge an alliance against the Lannisters."

He wonders if he has told her too much, and then she shifts to rest her chin on his chest and look very seriously at him.

"Garlan truly is the only one of you with any thought for propriety," she says primly, and he's so surprised by her reaction that all he can do is laugh.

"Ask Leonette why there was such a short time between Garlan asking for her hand and their wedding, love," he tells her, "and then tell me again that Garlan gave any thought to propriety in matters of the heart."

She looks stunned, and then she giggles along with him before stilling in his arms, resting quietly against him. She is thinking about something, thinking so loudly he can almost hear her thoughts, and he wonders what is troubling her now – there are so many possibilities that he could not even begin to guess.

"Willas?"

"Yes, love?"

She hesitates, her fingers tapping up along his ribs and back down before she speaks.

"Why did you tell me of your past? Of... Did you love her?"

He catches her chin and brings her face up so he can look her in the eye.

"I thought that I loved Melinda," he says softly, "but now, knowing you, I know that I did not – I was flattered that she was interested in me, despite my being younger than her, and I was attracted to her very much. We also had a great deal in common, or at least, we had a great deal of interests in common, and we were good friends before she took me into her bed. I think that there may not be a word for what I felt for Linda – more than friendship, less than love – but know that it is nothing at all compared to what I feel for you, Sansa. You have nothing to fear from her ghost."

"And what of the ghost of her child? Will my sons and daughters have to fear the memory of their long-dead brother?"

The anger that boils up his gullet takes him by surprise, and he forces himself to remain calm when he answers, even though he has to grit his teeth to do so.

"You honestly think so little of me?" he demands, sitting up and forcing her to do so as well. "You honestly believe that I could bear any ill will against my own children? How could you think so little of me, Sansa? Do you not understand me better than that? I-"

Is this how she felt, he wonders, when he told her the truth of his past? This bone-deep sense of betrayal? How can she believe such a thing, though, how can she possibly believe that he could resent their children because of what occurred between him and Melinda?

Her arms slide smooth around his shoulders, her face warm against the side of his neck and her body soft against his.

"I am sorry," she whispers, "I didn't mean it, Willas, but I- there is so much of this that still does not make sense."

He sighs heavily, reminds himself how young she truly is, and then winds his arms around her, pulls her properly into his lap and buries his face in her hair.

"Your sons and daughters," he says, nuzzling through her hair until his mouth is at her ear, "our sons and daughters, will be the heirs to Highgarden, the most beloved children in the whole of the Reach – in the whole of the world, love. Nothing could ever change that."

He wishes he could explain how much he already loves their children, who yet live only in his dreams, how just the thought of children with Sansa's hair or eyes or sweet smile makes him so happy he feels he might burst, but he thinks she might find him silly, so instead he holds her and says nothing.

"Willas?"

"Yes, my darling?"

"Why did they fake the bandit attack? That makes less sense than anything else, I think."

"Remember I told you that Melinda was betrothed? To a Lannister?"

They settle back against the pillows, her head tucked under his chin, and she nods.

"Had it been discovered that Melinda died of... Had it been discovered that... Had anyone found out what caused her death, Melinda would have been shamed, and through her, Baelor and Rhonda – they were her guardians, after all, and they allowed her to be dishonoured."

He pauses, considers how best to phrase the bitter anger Melinda's father had snarled at Willas, when he had come to the High Tower to share the news of her death.

"Then, of course, it would have had to come out," he says, "that it was me who dishonoured her, because it would be impossible to hide the truth when my uncle would have been blamed for being negligent, had I not been honest."

"But a bandit attack? It seems... Excessive. Surely some illness or other?"

He sighs, because this is something that has never made sense to him, either.

"Melinda's parents acted as they saw fit," he says. "I do not understand, but... I sometimes wondered if they did not act as swiftly as they ought when it became apparent that something was wrong – it would likely have been apparent that Melinda was not a maid on her wedding night, and that could have raised more problems with the Lannisters. Even the Lannisport Lannisters are considered too powerful to make an enemy."

She seems to consider this for a long time.

"You said that you wanted to marry her," she says at last. "Would you have? Had the contract with the Lannisters been broken?"

"My father would never have allowed it. Mother would never have allowed it – I think they would have found someone to marry Melinda, and done their best to keep what would have been seen as an indiscretion on my part secret. Then again, had it gotten out that I am capable of conceiving a child, regardless of my leg, Father may have had an easier time of it when looking for a wife for me."

"Oh."

"My parents... I do not think Mother could ever have forgiven me that. I don't think she will, if she were ever to learn the truth. Aside from my uncle and Aldwin, you are the only person I chose to tell, Sansa."

She sits up, slow and languid, her hair tumbling all around her and her nightgown gaping wide at the neck. He looks away sharply, feeling guilty, because no matter how beautiful she is this is not the right time – she was right on that above all things.

"I still don't entirely understand why you told me," she says, sitting back on her heels and frowning down at her hands (gods above, she's wearing her wedding ring!). "But it does help to put certain things in perspective."

"Such as?"

She looks at him through her eyelashes, smiling ever so slightly.

"Why you are so protective of me, mayhaps?" she suggests, rolling her eyes. "And why you were... You are very reserved towards your family."

He sits up at that – towards Father, mayhaps, but they are working to repair all that has been lost and broken between them – and regards her curiously.

"How so?"

"Aside from Garlan and sometimes Lady Alerie, you seem... Unhappy with your family. It is as if you are afraid of being close to them."

"That's ridiculous," he says, stunned. "I am not afraid of my family. I love them."

"And I love my sister, but she terrifies me," Sansa points out. "Willas-"

"This is nonsense," he says firmly, shaking his head. "I-"

"It is not nonsense," she says sharply, climbing off the bed and gathering her robe around herself. "If you are going to be stubborn and rude, I am not going to upset myself by arguing pointlessly with you. Goodnight, my lord."

He is so surprised by this unexpected turn of events that he isn't even particularly annoyed that he didn't get to kiss her.

* * *

Sansa curls onto her side and almost giggles at her daring – Lady Alerie gave her all sorts of advice on how to handle Willas' temper, but she never thought she might be brave enough to use any of it.

She sleeps well enough, although she does startle awake once or twice simply for lack of Willas' bulk beside her, and Marian tells her that he will not be breaking his fast with her because he has gone out for a walk.

"He was already half-dressed when Aldwin went to wake him," she explains as she tugs a brush through Arya's hair. "Headed out for the western gardens, apparently."

The stables and kennels both are in the southern gardens, the aviary in the eastern, and so Sansa has no idea why Willas might have gone west – but then, the gardens here are so vast that she thinks that she has seen only a tiny fragment of them.

"Lord Garlan and Lady Leonette are waiting for you when you've finished with your meal, milady," Marian calls over her shoulder while lacing Arya into her gown – another of Alla's, this one pale green edged with silvery white – and Sansa wonders at that, too. She worries that she offended Garlan the other day when she snapped at him, but he has not seemed angry with her.

"Did they say why they wish to see me, Marian?" she asks, and is surprised when Marian cackles.

"It's a surprise, milady," she teases, and Sansa cannot help but laugh with her at that – at least she knows that, from Garlan and Leonette, it will be a nice surprise, which washes away the shiver of fear that she knows is only a remnant of Joffrey's cruelty.

She wishes Willas were here.

* * *

"Are you quite sure about this?" Leonette asks, standing back with her arms folded while Garlan ducks into the kennels. "Mayhaps she would prefer-"

"Sansa will love it," he says firmly, emerging with the floppy eared little pup he'd chosen (with Willas' blessing, although he isn't sure Willas remembers giving it) the day before Sansa's sister arrived. "She spoke about her wolf pup plenty while we were traveling, didn't she? This is precisely what she needs, darling, I- Sansa! Sansa, this way!"

Sansa's sister is trailing her steps like her shadow, but he hadn't expected anything different – the girl seemed determined to find some fault with Highgarden terrible enough to convince Sansa to go on this mad errand to hunt down rumours of their youngest brother.

"Marian said that you wished to see me?" Sansa says, blinking up at him prettily – he must remember to tease Leonette for being so small beside his brother's wife later – and smiling. "I am sorry that I was delayed, but-"

"It matters not," he says, grinning to Leonette before shifting his hold on the pup. "We merely remembered that we had not given you a gift for your nameday – for good reason, I promise – and thought that we had tarried long enough."

"Stop being silly," Leonette admonishes him, and he passes the pup to her without argument when she holds out her hands. "We had to wait until she was strong enough to be away from her mother, Sansa, and then-"

"This puppy is for me?" Sansa breathes, and Garlan is taken aback by the tears in her eyes – he knew that she would like their gift, but he had never expected such a strong reaction!

"A nameday gift, from Garlan and I," Leonette says gently, passing the pup to Sansa. "To welcome you properly to Highgarden – we all have a hound of our own save you, Sansa."

"At least you have a decent horse," Garlan says without thinking, holding up his hands when Leonette scowls at him. "Well, she does – I still cannot quite believe that Willas gave her Whisper."

"Why shouldn't he have given me Whisper?" Sansa asks, looking terribly confused as she scratches her little dog between the ears. "Is there something wrong with her?"

"Quite the opposite," Leonette laughs, and Garlan notices the way Sansa's sister is glaring at Leonette – he won't stand for that, so he moves slightly between them, just enough to discourage her. "Willas was so leery of letting anyone else near Whisper that even Loras gave up on asking if he could ride her – it was quite... telling when he gave her to you."

Sansa's cheeks are bright pink now, which would have made Garlan laugh had Leonette not kicked him in the shin, so instead of teasing her about how easily Willas fell in love with her, he asks what she intends on calling the pup.

"Blossom," she says, after considering it for a long moment, looking up at the trailing sprays of apple blossom overhanging the avenue leading to the back gate. "I think it's quite fitting, don't you?"


	24. Chapter 24

Loras' grave is a riot of baby's breath and alysum, white and sweet smelling, and there is a trailing tendril of peony roses being coaxed up over his stone. Willas can't be certain if that's Mother's doing or Margaery's, but he feels intensely guilty for not coming to Loras' grave in so long.

Part of him feels that he ought speak to his brother, but the rest of him feels that such a thing would feel silly.

A tiny, tiny fragment of him – the most honest part, mayhaps – knows that only Sansa's opinion that he is somehow afraid of his family spurred him into doing this. Otherwise, he might have waited for a half dozen moons to turn, for Loras' nameday, before visiting here.

You always did confound me, little brother, he thinks miserably. I loved you all the same, for all we fought. I wonder if you knew how jealous I was of you?

He hears someone rustling through the thick grass – a gardener, he assumes – and bends down to pluck the beginnings of a thistle from the left corner of the grave.

I hated you near as much as I loved you, he tells Loras, or at least wishes that he could. I resented so much that everything came so easily to you – I hated that you and Renly were so easy together, even though most the realm would have helped the Faith execute you both for loving one another. I was jealous of you for having that, I think. I never meant any of the cruel things I said, Loras. I hope you knew that.

"What are you doing here?"

He looks over his shoulder, surprised to see Margaery – although he supposes he should not be, given that Mother told him that Margie has taken to spending hours at a time at Loras' graveside. He wonders if he would do the same had Garlan been the one to die, and realises that he cannot imagine a world without their fool brother in it. A world without Garlan would be a dark place indeed, he thinks. I wonder if the same is true for Margaery, now Loras is gone.

It certainly is for Mother, he knows – she puts on a good front, but he knows her well enough to see the shadows in her eyes, the twist to her smile, the way her hands tremble and her eyelids droop from many sleepless nights. Father is near as bad, but he hides it better behind his usual bluster and bravado.

"I came to see Loras," he says, and then wonders if that was a silly way to phrase it.

"I don't see why," Margaery says, and her voice is bitter and sharp. "You never wanted anything to do with him when he is alive – is this to make your precious Sansa think better of you? Everything you do now seems to revolve around her."

"It was you who was so adamant that Sansa and I would be a suitable match, little sister," he says mildly, wondering if everyone thinks he had so little regard for Loras. "And Loras was my brother as much as yours, Margie. I am entitled to mourn him, you know."

"What have you to mourn?" Margaery demands, shocking him. "You hardly knew him – you were away at Oldtown half our childhood, and then he was at Storm's End when you did eventually come home. He might have been one of the cousins, for all you knew him-"

"Loras was my brother, Margaery, whether you like it or not," he says, nonplussed by her apparent fury but unwilling to bend to it. He has long been of the opinion that Margaery is too indulged, by their parents as much as by Grandmother, and he will not indulge her now. "I loved him – mayhaps not so well as you-"

"Nobody loved him so well as me!" she announces, and Willas is impossibly glad that Mother and Father are not here to hear this. "Garlan tried, but you were too caught up in your misery and self-pity to look long enough to see that he wasn't all the horrible things you said he was!"

"What horrible things?" he asks, genuinely confused. "Margie-"

"You used say he was shallow, and vain, and rude, and arrogant, and-"

"But Margie," he says, "Loras was all those things – he was more than that, I know, but he was most certainly those things."

"You don't-"

"What is going on?"

They both turn, surprised by Father's sudden and deathly silent appearance. Surprised more by the obvious anger on his face, Willas can admit that. Father's tendency to bum and blow makes his true anger, which, surprisingly, runs cold, all the more unnerving.

"How dare you both squabble like children over your brother's grave?" he demands, coming to stand between them, glaring from one to the other. Willas can feel his cheeks warm, can see Margie's do the same. "We all loved Loras, Margaery, and we all mourn him, and you were closer to him than any of the rest of us, sweetling."

Margaery ducks her head, not looking up until Father cups her chin and draws her face up, tipping her nose with his knuckle as he did when she was small and then drawing her under his arm.

"As for you, you lummox," he says to Willas, "you and Loras were intolerable to one another, and you made sure that we all knew it – you should not be as surprised as you are that Margaery did not expect to find you here. We know that you loved him, Willas, but we never thought that you and Loras liked one another – you were always too alike, too much like me, to be truly close."

* * *

Willas laughs when Sansa introduces him to Blossom, stroking her floppy ears and ruffling her silky coat.

"My best bitch is her mother," he says with a grin, lifting her up into his lap to check her over. "Garlan couldn't have picked a better pup for you, I'll admit that – and I suppose Leonette is behind the collar?"

The collar being braided satin ribbons and one length of creamy-soft leather as a nod to practicality, but before Sansa can respond, Blossom gives Willas' cheek a sloppy lick and he's laughing again.

She loves him with his animals – he doesn't seem to worry when he's grooming his horses or training his hawks or sneaking treats to his hounds when the kennelboys aren't looking. There's something very sweet about him, in the way he spoils them like every one of them is a treasured pet, Blossom, it would seem, is no different.

"You know," he says, kissing Blossom's wet nose and passing her to Sansa, "I think it's only fair that Garlan gives me a pup now, for my nameday."

"They're already your pups," Sansa points out with a smile, settling Blossom in the nest of her gathered skirts, thrilled at the way the little dog curls up and watches her with bright eyes. "It would be redundant for Garlan to give you one."

"He'd pick one out for a pet for me, though," Willas says thoughtfully. "I can never bring myself to separate one from the rest of the litter, you see – I feel cruel."

Sansa thinks of herself and Arya going south with Father, taking Lady and Nymeria away from their brothers, of Jon going to the Wall with Ghost, and she feels so sad that she almost loses grip of the sweet happiness that is this sunny interlude with her husband and her pet.

In this moment, it's hard to tell who's looking at her with more love in their eyes.

"I hope to go riding as soon as Maester Lomys allows me out of this thing," he says, gesturing to his casted leg – he pushed himself too hard this morning, out by Loras' grave. He had been very melancholy when she found him, sitting by the window and looking out into their little garden (Sansa found a door in the other bedchamber, and she intends on forcing Willas to break his fast there with her as soon as the grass is trimmed and a table and comfortable chairs might be found). He told her something vague about fighitng with Margaery and speaking with his father when she asked, and she did not press him – there is a strange distance between himself and Lord Mace and Margaery, something she does not understand, and it is very delicate, so she does not like to add pressure to it by needling him.

"Will you accompany, my lady?" he asks, and she has lost track of the conversation so obviously that he smiles and explains. "For a ride, my love, once I'm free of this contraption."

"If Maester Lomys says that it will cause you no ill, then I would be glad to go riding with you," she says firmly, and he pouts like a child at that, which makes her giggle. "Garlan and Leonette have offered to take Arya riding, to show her some of the Reach – they think it might make her more at her ease here, if she were to see that there is no war here."

"If she could see that you are not in danger here," he corrects. "I do not think she trusts me an inch – I can't see what it is I've done to earn such animosity."

Sansa hesitates – he already feels so guilty, she knows, she has seen it in the way he no longer even touches her, really, unless she initiates the contact, and to think that Arya sees it as such...

"She refuses to believe that I consented to sharing your bed," she admits at last. "She thinks- She believes that-"

"That I forced you," he says, clearly astonished. "Well, it seems that this is a day when I am seen at something beyond my worst. Gods above, does she truly think me a rapist?!"

"I have done everything I can to convince her otherwise," Sansa promises, "but she is stubborn, and if something does not fit into the way she sees things... Had she been in my position, she says that she would never have consented to sharing a bed with a husband who she married only as an escape, and so she cannot believe that I would do so."

"Your sister and you are very different people," he says, a wry twist to his small smile. He is smiling so much more this past few days, and it makes her probably more hopeful than she ought to be that he is sincerely happier now than he was. He certainly seems calmer, which is wonderful. "You should see Mother and her youngest brother, Humfrey – if you didn't know them, you'd swear they detested one another. It is the same with your sister and yourself, I think."

Sansa can't help but laugh at that – if Willas were even slightly less stubborn, he might have used himself and his father as an example there, but he is stubborn, more than Sansa could ever have imagined.

"I suppose," she admits. "Have you thought any more about who you might send to White Harbour?"

"Father is considering Garett, Uncle Garth's younger son," he says, stretching his arms high over his head and yawning hugely. "A bastard won't attract as much as a lord of our House would, particularly one with as little talent for subterfuge as Uncle Garth, but a bastard of our House might just avoid bearing insult to House Manderly, if he is explained well enough."

"Do you think it possible that my brother is alive, Willas? Truly?"

"Sansa, a week ago I would have thought it impossible that your sister could possibly be alive," he says, shaking his head and reaching over to scratch Blossom's head again. "Now, I think anything is possible of House Stark, love."

A knock on the door startles them both, and Sansa makes an effort to right her skirts until she sees that it is Aldwin come calling on them.

"A raven just came to your father, milord," he says, looking concerned. "From Storm's End - the Prince is on his way here, milord."


	25. Chapter 25

Sansa has seen Highgarden at its best advantage only once before, during the days before of her and Willas' wedding, and so it takes her breath away when she sees the full extent of the preparations for Prince Aegon's arrival – Leonette, apparently, feels the same.

"Garlan and I were married at Cider Hall," she explains as they walk through the kitchen garden with Lady Alerie and Arya, baskets of fresh peaches hanging from their arms. "Your wedding was the first Highgarden celebration I was ever truly present for – I was tending my mother when Margaery married Renly Barathon, and aside from that, there has never been a time of true celebration that I was a member of the family for."

"I only wish that it were a more joyous occasion that were your second celebration, Sansa," Lady Alerie says, shaking her head. "Ah, this well be uncomfortable for us all, particularly if Prince Aegon behaves inappropriately towards you again."

Sansa and Leonette both stop, stunned by that.

"I-"

"Willas and Garlan did not say a word," Lady Alerie assures them, "but I know my sons well enough to understand when they dislike a man, and to understand why they dislike him." Then she grins. "And Marian tells me a great deal more about Willas than he would like, although you are never to tell him that."

Sansa wonders what else Marian has told Lady Alerie, and decides to ask later.

"Why are we gathering peaches?" Arya asks, hefting her basket – filled to overflowing – higher towards her elbow. "Aren't there servants for this?"

"A special mark of respect," Lady Alerie explains, "for particularly esteemed guests – peaches are a speciality of ours, dear, and for guests who we particularly need to impress, we present peaches picked by members of the family."

"As our husbands are in council, organising the war, it has fallen to us," Leonette adds. "Besides, we've picked enough that there will be more than enough for all of us, and Highgarden peaches really are as good as everyone says they are."

Sansa takes Arya's hand, worrying that her sister might object further, but instead, Arya shrugs.

"Makes sense," she says, surprising Sansa. "But what do you mean, Lady Alerie, that the prince was inappropriate towards Sansa?"

* * *

Willas swings himself down the stairs at Garlan's side, wondering how he didn't notice his arms strengthening to the point where it didn't ache to crutch up and down the stairs anymore.

"Are you quite certain that you can behave yourself with the prince?" Garlan asks quietly, his voice and their steps echoing off the walls. "You won't be able to balance well enough to hold him by the throat this time."

"I didn't hold him by the throat last time, either," Willas points out. "I held him by the front of his doublet. Utterly different."

Garlan only shakes his head and catches Willas' elbow when his crutches slip on the polished floor.

"Yes, well," Garlan offers. "Be glad Father is unaware of that. I can't see him being as amused by it as I was, hmm?"

"I imagine his reaction would be closer to Sansa's," Willas admits. "She was unimpressed by what she politely termed my theatrics."

The click of Willas' crutches and boot are louder by far than the soft thud of Garlan's boots, but not loud enough to drown out the steady thump of Father's feet following them down from his solar.

"You left something behind you, lad," he calls down to Willas, and Willas rolls his eyes at the sight of Sansa's Blossom gamboling down the steps at Father's feet. "She trails you near as faithfully as she does her mistress, it seems."

Willas bends down to scratch between Blossom's oversized ears, and he shakes his head in amazement.

"She trails whichever one of us is inside," he corrects Father. "And if we are both inside, she blatantly prefers Sansa to me."

"I should hope so," Garlan huffs, sweeping Blossom up and pressing a kiss to her head – a pet for the family as much as for Sansa, Willas thinks with a smile – before grinning to Father. "She was Sansa's gift, after all. Willas is just jealous."

Willas almost sticks his tongue out at Garlan for that poorly-hidden jape, but then he might have to explain why he did so to Father and it's truly not worth it.

"Put the dog down, little brother," he chides instead, and Garlan snickers a laugh before setting Blossom back down, where she proceeds to do nothing more than make a nuisance of herself by scampering their feet so Willas is afraid to lift his crutches in case he puts them back down on her paws. "Do you know, I think you picked the stupidest pup in the litter when you chose Sansa's gift, Garlan."

"Don't speak so of Blossom!"

Sansa's cheeks are pink and her hair mussed from the breeze outside, and the whole hall smells suddenly of peaches – Sansa and Mother and the others are all carrying two baskets each, heavily laden with fresh fruit that looks so ripe Willas is half tempted to steal some of it...

"If either of you boys even think about taking so much as a single peach," Mother warns when Sansa sets her baskets down so she can kneel and smother Blossom with kisses (if Willas were an honest man, he'd admit to being jealous of that, just a little).

"Where's Margie?" he asks instead, suddenly noticing his sister's absence – she was with Mother this morning, when she went to meet Sansa and her sister and Leonette in the orchards, he's sure of it – and frowning. "Has she taken ill?"

"Alla fell from a tree," Sansa says absently, and if Willas thinks that Arya Stark looks guilty then he must be the only one, for nobody else seems to notice how interesting she suddenly finds the floor. "We think she broke her wrist, so Margaery brought her to the maester with Merry and Megga's help."

"What possessed Alla to climb a tree?" Garlan asks, having missed the look on Arya's face that explained it all quite clearly – not someone he would have supposed Alla to wish to befriend, but he does not know his cousins that well, after all. "Alla? Alla Tyrell?"

"Yes, Garlan, your cousin Alla," Mother says, rolling her eyes and passing one of her baskets to Father. "Now, come along – we must get these to the hall and then prepare ourselves for the prince's arrival."

* * *

Every room in Highgarden has been stuffed full of sweet-smelling flowers, and Sansa knows that she only has Willas to thank for the merciful lack of roses in their own rooms.

Their new rooms – he was true to his word, those weeks ago when he offered to move upstairs, and their rooms, a suite across from Lady Alerie's that looks south across the gardens and out over slow, rolling fields of flowers as far as she can see, are beautiful, high-ceilinged and airy and full of windows, huge windows that let in so much light Sansa half wonders how the walls don't just collapse under the weight of the roof – are brimming over with honeysuckle and clematis and wisteria, twisted into pretty arrangements that climb temporary trellises around the windows in their solar and that curl around the posts of their bed, leaving tiny blossoms all over their pillows every night.

"Just think," Willas calls over his shoulder as he levers himself carefully out of the bath on his crutches, "by the time the prince is gone, I shall be able to bathe with both legs in the bath!"

"Stop it," Sansa laughs, wincing when the comb in Marian's hand catches in her hair. "You've done nothing but whine about that cast since the day Maester Lomys put it on, a few more days will hardly kill you."

"It is killing me," he sighs melodramatically, waving Marian away when he lowers himself onto the bench of the dressing table beside Sansa. "Maester Lomys has forbidden me from going outside, he says it's too likely I'll slip and damage my leg – I'm bored, Sansa!"

"Well, there will be plenty of excitement to be had inside while Prince Aegon and his people are here," she says firmly. "Did you learn nothing from Alla's fall? It is slippy out, Willas, it's rained for the past three days almost without break!"

Rain here in the Reach is as pretty as everything else, soft and warm, and it's just as lethal as everything else, too, turning every surface as slippery as if there's been frost in the night.

"Yes, well, Alla put herself in harm's way when she climbed that tree," he points out. "I would not be so foolish – are you wearing the blue tonight, my love?"

"You would be just as foolish, just because you would refuse to accept what you cannot do," she says wryly, knocking away his hands when he moves to pull her into his arms – he is naked, and still dripping wet, and she already has her smallclothes and her shift on and they are silk, which will be ruined if he gets his wet hands all over it. "And no, the gold."

The gold is not truly gold, but rather a deep, warm, golden-green, a lovely autumnal colour that Sansa very much liked when the dressmakers offered fabric samples. Lady Alerie agreed that it would be a lovely foil for her hair, and so she has a new gown that Willas has not yet seen, but that she hopes will stun him completely.

"I have a gift for you, then," he says, surprising her, and he calls for Aldwin and Marian before she can react – Aldwin, who has a robe over his arm that he holds out until Willas gives in.

"Mayhaps put on your drawers before giving anything to milady Sansa, hmm?" he says with a frown, and Willas rolls his eyes in just the same way Lady Alerie does before giving in and letting Aldwin help him dry off and dress while Marian finishes Sansa's hair.

"You are going to be very polite to Prince Aegon when he arrives," she tells him once they're standing together in their solar, once she feels beautiful and confident and he's too busy staring at her in such blatant admiration that it makes her blush to refuse her anything. "You are going to behave as though he were nothing but respectful towards me, because if you give even the slightest hint that something is amiss, I fear my sister may murder him, and then we are all ruined."

"If he sees you in this gown," Willas says, his voice strained, "then I may have no choice but to commiserate with him."

"Whatever do you mean by that?"

He finally meets her eyes, smiling just a little, and then shakes his head.

"Have you even the faintest notion of how beautiful you are, Sansa?"

* * *

Aegon's horse is a silver, gleaming as bright as his hair in the sudden sunset.

"The bastard," Garlan grumbles beside Willas. "You'll have to give him your best, ugliest horse just to get him off that beauty."

"So long as he does not try to get on any other beauty during his stay, I think we may be able to tolerate him," Leonette murmurs primly, and it's all Willas and Garlan and Sansa can do not to burst out laughing as Aegon's feet touch the fresh-swept cobbles of the courtyard.


	26. Chapter 26

"Highgarden is more beautiful than I could have imagined," Prince Aegon says, gazing about him in open wonder. "You are lucky indeed to have such a home, my lord."

Willas smiles – Prince Aegon has been nothing but respectful since his arrival, even to Sansa and her sister, and so Willas is behaving so impeccably that even Garlan and Leonette have no cause for complaint.

"The Reach is a beautiful place as a whole, your highness," he agrees. "We are blessed with a perfect situation – Highgarden simply takes advantage of its surroundings."

"You are too modest, my lord," Aegon insists, and Willas feels his eyebrow lift in amusement. "Your House has done great things for the Reach and in the Reach – I have rarely seen such prosperity as I did while riding here from Storm's End."

"My father is an able lord," Willas says, nodding towards Father and Lord Connington where they walk a little ahead, with Mother and Lady Lemore (not a septa after all, but Aegon's foster-mother, and, Willas suspects, a great deal more than she seems even now). "Our people have flourished under his rule, just as they did under my grandfather's – we are lucky to have mild winters and fertile land, your highness, and much of our lands have been untouched by war for many long years. Even now, it is only our western coast and our northern borders that are in danger – much of our farmland is in the south-eastern areas, so our people are in no danger of going hungry."

"How interesting," Aegon says, and Willas is surprised that he seems genuinely interested. "I would like to see more of the Reach – would that there was time."

"Mayhaps when the war is won, sire," Willas says, glancing back to Sansa. She seems to be holding her own well enough with Princess Arianne, her hands clasped demurely before her and her head bowed closer to Arianne's – the difference in their heights is almost funny, because Sansa seems to get taller every time he looks at her, and Arianne is only about Leonette's height. Almost funny, but not, because there is a curl to Arianne's full lip that Willas much mislikes, because it looks as though she is laughing at Sansa. "When we are at peace, I would be glad to tour the Reach with you."

And again he is surprised, because it is true, in a way, he loves the Reach and loves introducing people to its wonders, and he thinks that the prince might appreciate it.

"I would like that," Aegon says, and he sounds as surprised by that as Willas is. "But first, we will win the war."

"No, your highness," Garlan says, leaning over Willas' shoulder with a grin. "First, we will celebrate!"

* * *

This is who he ought to be, Sansa thinks, watching Willas laugh and charm and tease all at the table. This is who he is, without the pain.

He has held her hand the entire time since the plates were cleared away, and even when he is speaking with someone on the other side of the table, he leans towards her, always close by.

Always firmly between her and Prince Aegon.

"Are you well, darling?" he murmurs, leaning just a little closer, smiling even though she can see the worry in his eyes. "You have been very quiet."

She blushes – she has not been quiet, she has been staring at him and he knows it, but she has so rarely seen him so at his ease, so in his element, that she can't quite look away.

"I am well," she whispers, smiling a little. "You seem to be enjoying yourself, my lord."

His smile is a shade more genuine now, and it makes her happy, so happy that she can't help but kiss him, just on the smooth skin above his beard.

"It has been a long time since I could think so clearly," he admits softly. "And being able to think clearly means that I can see all this for the game it is once more."

"The game?"

"Mm," he agrees. "Grandmother always said that politics were a game, and Grandfather always said the same – not that either of them would ever admit to being in agreement over something, of course. I've been trained to play this game since I was a child, my love, but I have been so preoccupied that I... I forgot, I think."

"And you... Enjoy these games?"

The thought makes her a little queasy, brings back so many memories of Cersei telling her what a fool she is, but Willas' fingers are linked through hers and they are warm, and he tips her head up with a bump of his nose to hers.

"They are the best means I have of serving my family, just as Garlan's prowess in battle is his" he says. "And I have always enjoyed those things that I am good at. Doesn't everyone?"

"I suppose," she admits uncertainly. "But-"

"We could teach you, too, love," he murmurs, looking strangely excited at the prospect. "You will need such skills if your brother is truly alive – there will be much politicking to be done in order to restore order in the North, and you may well be called upon to aid in restoring the Riverlands, and you and your siblings are, to my knowledge, near the only relatives left to the Lord of the Eyrie. You potentially could seize control of three of the nine regions of the realm, and with our marriage, the North, the Vale and the Riverlands are bound to the Reach and all our allies – in this case, the Stormlands and Dorne."

"Dorne and the North," Nym says from Sansa's other side – how it irked Lord Mace to seat the bastard Martells above the salt. "An unusual alliance, some would say, but mayhaps not – we are more similar than any would guess."

"Oh, I don't know about that, Nymeria," Willas says lightly. "Both with extreme weather, both with different customs, both with different blood – not such strange bedfellows, my lady."

"You think our weather makes us suitable allies?" Nym asks with a laugh. "What a peculiar man you are, Lord Tyrell."

Prince Aegon is seated to Lord Mace's right hand, in the place of most honour, and Sansa has to bite back a laugh at the way Lady Alerie watches him with one eyebrow quirked coolly – to Prince Aegon, Sansa does not doubt that her goodmother looks interested and even a little amused. Sansa knows better, though, and knows that Lady Alerie is in fact gauging Prince Aegon's abilities, his intelligence, and has yet to judge herself interested in him or otherwise.

Lord Mace, of course, is interested. Prince Aegon has enormous potential for power, and Lord Mace is intensely attracted to to power. He is sceptical of Princess Arianne, but Willas is the only one of the Tyrells who seems capable of not being openly suspicious of the Martells.

"You're staring at me again," Willas murmurs, leaning right in close so his mouth is against her ear. "Is there something on my face?"

She looks away, embarrassed, and looks to where Arya is sitting further down the table with Garlan and Leonette and some more of the Dornish folk, and she seems to be having the time of her life – Alla keeps giggling at everything she says, and Sansa longs for a friend like that, wishes she were sitting closer to Leonette.

"Sansa," he says softly, squeezing her hand. "Are you sure you are well?"

No, she doesn't feel well at all – she's had a terrible sense of foreboding since Aldwin told them Prince Aegon was on his way, and she doesn't quite know why. She thinks it's silly, can't place why it feels so strange – but she cannot tell him that. He will worry, and he cannot afford to be thinking of her now, when he must concentrate on doing his best to keep the Martells and Prince Aegon in check.

* * *

The rain stays away the next day, which is a torture while they are locked inside at council but a marvel when Father suggests they take a walk about the rose gardens – Garlan likes the gardens best after the rain, when they look fuller and healthier than usual.

Willas, though, is having some difficulty – the rain has made the paved paths slippery, and with his crutches, he keeps skidding. It is souring his mood, Garlan can see it in how tight Willas' jaw is, but he's putting on a brave face and Garlan doesn't think that anyone but himself and Father can see how irritated Willas is.

"There was nothing like this at Storm's End," Aegon says curiously, pausing to catch the scent of a peachy coloured rose (Leonette's favourites). "Your gardeners must work themselves to exhaustion to maintain all this."

Garlan has never really considered such a thing – the gardens simply are, and he cannot imagine Highgarden without them – but Willas is laughing.

"They are well paid for their work, your highness," he says, shaking his head. "And they are under our direct protection, because by necessity they live within the walls – we take our gardens more seriously than I imagine they do at Storm's End, sire."

Garlan has been surprised by how readily Father has left Prince Aegon in Willas' care, but mayhaps that is all to do with how Lord Connington is so clearly the true power. He and Father have walked with their heads bowed together the whole time since they left council, and Garlan knows that Willas has been watching them closely whenever he has not been speaking with Prince Aegon.

"Do you know," Willas says out the side of his mouth when the prince turns to talk to his Lord Commander, "he's not so bad as I thought, now that he's not trying to make my wife leave me."

Garlan can't help but laugh at that – it's been so long since Willas was in the sort of humour to jape and joke, particularly at his own expense, and it is a relief to see him so much more himself now than he has been in such a long time.

It is probably because he is laughing that he misses the gleam of the sun on the knife. It is probably because he is laughing that he is not the one who throws himself between Prince Aegon and the would-be assassin.

It is Willas.

* * *

Sansa is laughing at something Lady Alerie has said when the doors of Lady Alerie's solar are thrown open, and Leonette shrieks in horror before Garlan can open his mouth to say a word.

Sansa feels sick, watching Leonette press her hands to Garlan's stomach and chest, because she knows that it is not his blood. If it were his blood, he would not be here – he would be with Maester Lomys, and he would not be standing, not when there is so much blood.

"They sent me away," he says, sounding faint. "Maester Lomys said I was in the way, and Father said I was being useless."

So it is not Lord Mace's blood, either.

"Where is he?" she asks, setting aside her sewing, feeling strangely calm. I knew something was wrong, she thinks. I knew it.

"He- there was an assassin, one of the prince's guards, and I didn't see until it was too late, but Willas, he jumped between them, and the knife- the bastard stamped on his leg, too, his bad leg-"

"Where is my husband, Garlan?" Sansa demands, rising to her feet and swatting at Arya's hands. She has no time for Arya's frowns, no more than she does for Garlan's wittering on. "Where is Willas?"

"He is- he's with the maester, Sansa, in Maester Lomys' rooms-"

"Thank you, my lord," she says, smoothing her skirts and making for the door.

"Sansa, they won't let you in," Garlan calls after her, "they threw me out-"

She ignores him, ignores everything but the sharp click of her boots on the floor (Willas wanted to go riding, I'm breaking them in properly for him, he must not die). It is a long walk to the maester's chambers – right to the other end of the keep – and Sansa concentrates on her breathing as she goes, her hands folded together before her and her spine straight.

She pushes open the door without knocking, because she can hear shouting from behind it and does not think that any of them would hear her.

This is what it must feel to be on a battlefield she thinks, ignoring a wave of dizziness and moving across the room to kneel by Willas' head as the bonesaw cracks through his leg. He has vomited from the pain, but Lord Mace, Lord Connington and Prince Aegon are holding him down firmly while he squirmed and shouted.

"Hush now, love," she murmurs, pressing her temple to his as he begins to sob, tucking his face against her neck and and running her fingers through his hair. There's a wide, jagged wound in his back, gaping open and oozing blood, from his spine almost to his right shoulder blade, and Sansa's stomach turns a little looking at it.

He screams when the cauterising irons are pressed to his leg, and she shushes him gently and strokes his hair, rocking slowly to try and calm him.

The room stinks of blood and burning and Sansa forces back the steps of Baelor's sept and riots in the city, focuses instead on the uneven rhythm of Willas' sobs and the blood soaking into her sleeve from his back.

Maester Lomys leaves his apprentice to finish with Willas' leg, binding it with bandages that smell heavily enough of lavender oil to clear the air for just a moment. He will hate this, she thinks, shushing him again when he cries out at the touch of Maester Lomys' hands to his back. I am so sorry, Willas.

"The blade was poisoned," the maester says after a moment. "I will have to open his back more to drain the bad blood-"

Willas groans, in protest or fear or both, but Sansa just hushes him and looks to Lord Mace, who looks sick with fear.

"Do it," he says, and Sansa nods in agreement.

The knife in the maester's hand is bright and silver and wickedly sharp, and Sansa chooses to stare at it rather than react to Prince Aegon's nonsense about her leaving.

"Hold him still!" Maester Lomys orders, and Sansa grips tighter, digs her fingers into the slick, sweaty skin of Willas' shoulder and prays and prays that this works. Maester Lomys' apprentice is holding down one of Willas' arms, Prince Aegon the other, and Lord Mace and Lord Connington are holding his legs - or what's left of his leg, in Lord Mace's case,

She doesn't look away when the knife cuts into the swollen redness around the wound. She watches as the blood and poison well up and spread, watches as scalding hot water is poured over it all to draw out more of the poison, then boiling wine. She doesn't flinch when the water and wine soak her sleeve, even though she can feel her skin blistering as sure as she can see the blisters forming on Willas' back.

She keeps running her fingers through Willas' hair, whispering nonsense to him as he screams and sobs, as he begs her to make it end, and she keeps watching as if that means this will work and she won't lose him.

* * *

Afterwards, when Maester Lomys is directing his two apprentices in carrying the stretcher holding Willas, who managed to choke down enough dreamwine to sleep despite the pain and Prince Aegon and Lord Connington have gone to bathe and wash away the stink of Willas' blood, Sansa holds her arm up against her chest - it stings a little, where the water splashed against it - and watches as Willas is carried away down the hallway. She wants to follow him, but for some reason she can't make her feet move.

"Come and see me when you've changed, my lady," Maester Lomys reminds her. "I will treat the burn then."

"Why should I need to change first?" she asks absently, not looking away from Willas. "I-"

When she does look away, it's to her gown, her skirts a mess of vomit and blood, her bodice wet with wine and water and more blood, and it's only then that she realises quite how hard she's shaking, and that there are tears streaming down her face, and Lord Mace pulls her close and presses her face to his chest with a gruff "Come here, girl, you did well," just as the first scream tears from her throat.


	27. Chapter 27

Sansa refuses to stay away from Willas for any longer than it takes for her to calm down and change into something clean – she doesn't even look to see what it is that Marian helps her into, hardly notices anything save that the left sleeve is left unbuttoned from the elbow and then snipped up halfways to her shoulder, to leave the scalded skin free for the maester to treat.

Arya hovers nearby, biting her lip and frowning, but Sansa has no time to worry for her sister – Willas may yet die, and nothing beyond that in the whole world matters. Please don't die, she prays, I need you, please live.

His bedchamber smells overwhelmingly of lavender, between the bandages that are wrapped tight around what remains of his left leg and the fresher bandages Maester Lomys is wrapping around Sansa's arm and hand, and Sansa thinks she might be sick with it – she always liked the scent, but she knows that she will forever more associate it with this, with Willas crying out senselessly in pain as he's laid on the mattress, as his arm is bound so he cannot move it and disrupt the healing of the wound in his back.

"All of you," Maester Lomys says as he ties off the bandages high up Sansa's arm. "Out of this room – we must keep it as clean as we can, to reduce the risk of infection, and that means as few people as possible in and out."

Sansa smiles faintly to Garlan when he guides her down into a chair that someone – likely him – moved to the bedside while Lord Mace and Lady Alerie argue with the maester, insisting that they be allowed to stay.

Arya fiddles at something with Sansa's hair, offering a tiny smile when Sansa looks back over her shoulder, but she goes when Leonette takes her by the hand and tugs gently, promising to return soon.

Sansa doesn't think the maester's orders could possibly have included her until Lady Alerie stoops and wraps an arm about her shoulders, says something that Sansa chooses not to hear because it is nonsense.

"I must remain with him," she says, because such a thing ought to be blatantly obvious. "I must stay with Willas."

Lady Alerie almost argues, but then, surprising Sansa, Lord Mace steps forward.

"Alerie," he says quietly, "leave them be. It cannot do any more harm to leave her here than it did to allow her stay while Lomys tended him."

* * *

Mother curls against Father's chest as soon as Maester Lomys closes the door of Willas' bedchamber, and Garlan has half a mind to follow her example and just wish the world away from the safety of Leo's arms.

He cannot, of course. With Willas indisposed as he is and Father and Mother here, keeping vigil, it falls to Garlan to play host to their illustrious guests.

"I should go to Prince Aegon," he says quietly, pulling Leo close under one arm and reaching out to Margaery with the other hand. "Then I will speak with Vyrwel, seek any information he might have found on our assassin, and then... Then, I do not know."

"I will help," Margaery offers, even though her eyes are red and her chin is trembling – he knows, vaguely, that she and Willas fought recently, but does not know why or what over. The idea of them so much as arguing astounds him, but Willas has been known to be cruel or careless with his words while ill... "I can organise the household, ensure that everything is still in place for dinner tonight, and Grandmother can help with sending word to the bannermen calling the banners, if you'd like – she and I can write the letters, and Father can sign and seal them when Willas is better."

Her faith in Willas' recovery forces a lump to Garlan's throat, so he only pulls her close and kisses her brow before sending her on her way with a wave and a nod, but he thinks she understands. She has always been so intuitive.

"You should go," Leonette says quietly, reaching up to touch his face. "Willas is in the best possible care, darling, he will be as safe as we can hope."

"You will stay here?" he asks, tucking her hair back. "You will watch him for me?"

She looks up at him, as if to say I will watch him for us both, and he nods his thanks, pressing a kiss to her brow and guiding her back to sit.

"I am more than well enough to stand for a few minutes, husband," she whispers, and he can't help but brush his fingertips over her belly – he had intended on adding to the cheer tonight by sharing their wonderful news, but if there are assassins about, he will not risk her or the babe. "Go, look after our prince-who-would-be-king, and I will look after our fool brother."

Prince Aegon and Lord Connington both are standing in the foyer when Garlan comes down the stairs, and it isn't until he sees how clean they both are – the prince is wearing white, for gods' sakes – that he realises how filthy he is, Willas' blood dried into his doublet and shirt and likely his breeches, too.

"Lord Willas lives?" Prince Aegon asks urgently, coming forward to meet him.

"He lives," Garlan agrees, shaking his head. "But we do not know if he will live for long. His injuries are... Considerable."

"If there is anything-"

"There is not, Lord Connington," Garlan says sharply, and then backtracks frantically, "but thank you all the same. My brother is in the hands of our maester and of the gods now, my lord. All we can do is obey the one and pray to the other."

* * *

"It may be the poison, it may be the sheer magnitude of his wounds," Maester Lomys says, throwing back the covers before taking a scissors to Willas' smallclothes. "Soak the cloths, my lady, lay them here, here and here," he adds, pointing to Willas' throat, his belly, the insides of his thighs. "Then more for his brow, and for under his arms – we must try to cool him at least a little."

Sansa does as she is bid while the maester throws open the windows as wide as they will go, while he turns his attention to the fire. Sansa does not pay much attention, just continues to soak cloths in cool water and lay them to Willas' flushed, overheated skin – so overheated that she can feel how hot it is from an inch or more away.

"We must keep his head cool," Maester Lomys tells her, removing the pillows from under Willas' head. "I will send from his man, have him shaved-"

"Will that help much?"

"It may help a little, my lady," he says, shrugging. "Beard and hair, and we keep him doused in cool water as best we can."

Sansa continues to drape wet cloths all over Willas, and though she was not aware of the maester sending for Aldwin he is suddenly there, bowl of hot water and soap and shaving brush and razor at the ready.

"I'll need to cut his hair short first," he says gently. "Will you hold his head, milady?"

She does as she is told, watches as Aldwin snips away Willas' curls and then sets to soaping his hair, working up a thick lather before lifting the razor.

"He will live, won't he, Aldwin?"

"I certainly hope so, milady," Aldwin says, scraping the razor across Willas' scalp. "I certainly hope so."

* * *

"Sansa loves him," Arya whispers, sitting on the windowsill of Brienne's room – she has gotten as good as Bran ever was at climbing, is maybe even better – and watching the door warily. "I think she does, at least – she won't leave before he's well or he dies, not even if that cousin of the fat man's sends proof that Rickon is at White Harbour."

"He is her husband," Brienne says uncertainly. "She may not be able to leave Highgarden, not without his express permission."

"He would let her do whatever she wanted, provided she was in no express danger doing it," Arya disagreed. "He's besotted by her."

They sit in silence for a time, Brienne scratching absently at the scars on her cheek.

"She will come north when word comes that it truly is Rickon," Arya says. "I know she will."

"You would rather she did so without a husband in the south," Brienne notes, too knowing for Arya's liking.

Arya shrugs it off, though.

"If she comes north, she may never come back south," she says, knowing it will hurt Sansa but knowing, too, that it is likely for the best. "It would be better for her if he died."


	28. Chapter 28

Sansa returns from dressing the following morning to find Willas not only still flushed and sweating, but also muttering deliriously, tossing and turning as best he can with half a leg and his arm bound to his chest.

Maester Lomys is gone to rest for an hour or two, having stayed awake through the night with Willas, and so Sansa sets about doing the best she can – soaking more rags with cold water, laying them against his skin in the places the maester showed her.

He starts to toss and turn and thrash about an hour or so into her stay, and she wishes desperately she might send for Maester Lomys, but he is an old man, sixty years and a few more, and he needs to rest.

"Please," she begs the gods, wondering if they have ever truly listened to her prayers, because they seem intent on stripping her of her every happiness in this life, sitting on the edge of the bed at Willas' hip, "please, spare him, please-"

She cuts off with a shriek as Willas' hand, in a particularly violent spasm, connects with her cheek, knocking her clean off the bed.

"No," she gasps desperately, throwing herself across him as his limbs begin to shake and shudder, "no, please," and then she begins to scream for help, because she knows not what else she is to do.

* * *

Sansa is stroking her dog's silky coat as the maester stitches the gash in her cheek, preternaturally calm.

"He is not going to die," she says, voice terrifyingly even. "He cannot."

Arya glances to Alla, who is ghostly pale – everyone is more afraid than ever now, because Sansa's husband has had a seizure, caused by the poison in his back, which the maester fears may have reached his heart.

"I won't let him die," Sansa insists, wincing as the needle slips through her skin again – apparently, her husband backhanded her in the throes of his seizure, and nobody had thought to remove his signet ring, and it cut into Sansa's cheek. "He will not leave me, not like this."

Arya doesn't think she understood how much Sansa loved her Tyrell before he stepped between the prince and the assassin – now, though, she wonders if Sansa might love him more than she loves her. No, she thinks, it is a different sort of love, Mother did not love Father in the same way she loved her brother or uncle or father or sister or even us.

Thinking of their mother makes Arya's stomach turn, so she forces herself to think of something else.

"Is there nothing that can be done?" she asks, looking towards the open door of Sansa's husband's bedchamber – his parents and brother and sister are with him now, and his wicked little grandmother as well, but Arya knows that they will all step aside to allow Sansa to return to her place at his side the moment she indicates that she is ready to do so.

"I will apply a poultice to try and drain what poison remains in the wound," the maester says, shrugging tiredly. "There is little else I can do at this point, my lady – we must all pray, I suppose."

* * *

Willas' back is a thing of absolute horror when the maester peels away the final layer of bandages, passing them into Sansa's waiting hands. The skin is blistered and red, scalded smooth and rough by the water and wine Father said they used to try and draw the poison out yesterday, but even so the darker red streaks of blood poisoning are visible, shooting away from the vicious wound that stretches across too much of Willas' back.

Garlan feels sick just looking at it now, when it is as neat and tidy as it is likely to be for some time, so he steps out of the room, ignores Lady Arya's demanding questions, and makes his way to Father's solar – Prince Aegon and Lord Connington await him there, likely with Princess Arianne in tow, and he has already neglected them long enough.

If he has to think about keeping Prince Aegon happy without signing away all of House Tyrell's independence, then he cannot think about Willas and Willas' back and Willas suffering a seizure that may have been his death knell-

"Prince Aegon," he says, pushing the door closed behind him, "Lord Connington, Princess Arianne – please, sit."

"Your brother," Arianne Martell says, looking more inquisitive than concerned. "There was some development with his condition this morning? We heard the commotion from our rooms."

"He suffered a setback of sorts," Garlan says shortly, sitting behind Father's desk, the familiar green marble and stained oak a comfort that is most desperately needed just now. "We hope that it will not be a permanent setback, of course, but only time will tell."

* * *

"Lady Arya? Might I have a word?"

Arya is surprised – Lord Tyrell has not deigned to speak to her beyond interrogating her to be sure that she is who she says she is since her arrival at Highgarden, so she is unsure what his presence here in Lady Margaery's solar, where Arya has been exiled, means.

"Of course, my lord," she says as graciously as she can – Sansa did ask that she accord Lord Tyrell the respect due to him as their host – before rising to her feet. "Here, or elsewhere, my lord?"

He motions for her to join him in the hallway, and closes the door behind them.

"My cousin is in the Riverlands at present," he says, "and has sent word that there is a force of vigilante bandits attacking and killing Freys and Lannisters there, all in the name of the King in the North."

"I am aware, my lord," she says coolly. "I travelled extensively in the Riverlands between my disappearance in King's Landing and my arrival here. It was in the Riverlands that I came upon my companions, my lord. Why do you mention this to me?"

"Because these men are killing in your brother's name," Lord Tyrell says, arms folded over his great fat belly, "and because it was in the Riverlands that you found your travel companions – who, might I say, seem more like guards than companions, Lady Arya – and because you planned on spiriting my gooddaughter away in the night like a kidnapper, on a journey that would inevitably take you through the Riverlands."

"Your gooddaughter," Arya grits out, "is my sister."

"And my son's wife," Lord Tyrell says sharply. "She is Sansa Tyrell now, remember, and regardless of what hopes you might have entertained, you and whatever band of miscreants sent you on this mission, she and Willas are happy with one another, by some miracle. I will not allow that to be taken from either of them – you cannot be unaware of what your sister suffered during her time as hostage to the throne, and even if you are unaware of what my son has suffered, I will not allow you to behave towards him as such. She belongs in Highgarden now, Lady Arya."

"She is a Stark of Winterfell," Arya hisses, absolutely enraged at this stupid fat man's presumption. "She belongs in Winterfell, with our brother and me. She is of the North, Lord Tyrell, and she belongs in the North."

"Have you asked the girl what she wants?"

Arya blinks in surprise at that – of course Sansa wants to go home! Of course she wants to find Rickon, to avenge their family! How could she want anything else in the world?

Sansa always wanted to find her prince...


	29. Chapter 29

"It has been a fortnight," Willas says plaintively. "More, in fact – sixteen days. Please, maester, it is – or rather, it was my leg. I would like to see it, and today."

Sansa kept her fingers gentle as she scratched idly at his scalp, trying her best to calm him down. He had become steadily more agitated as the days had worn on, begging to be allowed to sit, to unpin his arm, to see his... His stump.

"You cannot sit up, my darling," she reminds him. "You cannot even lay on your back – how are you to see your leg like that?"

"I- Sansa," he complains, "you are supposed to side with me."

"Not when you are planning on putting yourself in harm's way again," she tells him, wishing she could offer him something more by way of comfort. "Willas, be reasonable-"

"I have been reasonable," he protests, "for two long weeks, Sansa, I have been nothing but reasonable, I have done everything that was asked of me, and I have absolutely obeyed the maester's every order, asking only this – I want to see it!"

"I don't understand why," Maester Lomys grumbles, cutting through the bandages binding Willas' back with a long-bladed scissors, unleashing a ferocious waft of lavender into the room. "It is not quite healed, my lord, and you would better served to wait for it to heal fully before you decide to poke and prod-"

"I shan't poke and prod-"

"You always do," Maester Lomys says. "Don't think I have forgotten that broken arm when you were a child, my lord, that became so infected that only the threat of amputation halted your poking and prodding."

Willas buries his face in the pillows with a groan, his free hand fisting in the bedclothes – clean and fresh, now that he is no longer sweating himself away to nothing with a fever – in pure frustration. He is becoming more difficult, Sansa knows, largely because he is so bored, but there is little to be done for that. He must remain as he is, just for a few days more, and until then he will have to make do – circumstances could be worse, after all.

He could be dead.

* * *

Sansa is the only thing keeping him sane, Willas knows, but even so, he is glad of the respite offered when she goes to her sister and the other women during the day.

This... Incident, and the reactions of his family thereto, it has given him much to think on. From the embarrassment caused by Prince Aegon's effusive thanks to the confusion and pain he felt upon waking the second time, this time with his whole family gathered around, to find that Margaery had excused herself because she thought he would not want to see her, to Sansa – she has taken to calling him my darling, and no endearment has ever sounded even half so sweet... It is all so much.

Too much, he thinks, especially considering what Maester Lomys has told him – that he will never entirely regain what health he had before the incident, likely not even to the level when his leg was at its worst, that he is crippled in more ways than one, that his lung was damaged by the assassin's blade, that his heart has likely been damaged by the poison, and then, of course, there is his leg.

He has unbent his pride just enough to admit that yes, he has been a fool to hold onto it all these years when amputation could have saved him so much pain, but that does not mean that he has to like it. He is not sure what to do with himself, in some ways, because he never realised quite how much of himself was focused on fighting the pain, and he feels so much sharper now. Even with the inordinate amounts of poppy that Maester Lomys insist he take on account of his back and his leg, he feels clearer than he has in years, clearer even than how bright he felt between the maester rebreaking his leg and the incident in the gardens, and it is a glorious thing.

But Margaery. She is a conundrum all of her own, if only because he cannot understand how he managed to neglect her so entirely.

She apparently does not feel the same, though, because she burrows under his arm when he holds it out to her as soon as he hears her coming, and she makes no move to leave him in the near future. He is glad, he thinks – he always adored Margaery, and he is only now realising what a fool he was to push her away.

Loras as well, but at least he can set things to right with Margaery. With Loras, he will have to wait until they are reunited, which hopefully will not be for a good long while yet. Nearly dying has made Willas realise just how desperately he wants to live, something he thinks would come as a relief to Sansa and Garlan and Mother in particular.

"Prince Aegon has promised to spare Tommen," she tells him, turning her face up to his and smiling. "He is such a sweet boy, he does not deserve to be punished for his mother's wrongdoings."

"Are you to remain his wife?"

"For the time being, at least," Margaery admits. "Tommen seems to quite like me as his wife – or at least, he seemed to before we fled the capital. He is a sweet boy, Willas, and I could not bear to see him harmed."

"I don't doubt that his mother has been poisoning him against you from the moment you departed," he warns her, shifting as best he can to look at her more comfortably. "Cersei Lannister is a uniquely poisonous woman, after all, and Tommen is still only a boy."

"He is too sweet to believe the sort of thing that whore will tell him of me," Margaery insists, and because she is generally a very good judge of character, he wonders if mayhaps she is right about little Tommen.

* * *

"We have had word from my cousin," Lord Mace says quietly, almost gently, and Sansa's stomach swoops sickly – is it not Rickon? Is it Rickon, and has he been hurt? Is he truly dead?

"Garse reached White Harbour four days ago," Lord Mace continues, "and was granted an audience with Ser Wylis Manderly, Lord Manderly's heir, two days ago, once his credentials had been thorougly investigated. Also present at this audience were Ser Wylis' eldest daughter, Lady Wynafryd, and Ser Davos Seaworth, who styles himself Hand to the false king, Stannis Baratheon."

Sansa jumps at the feel of Arya's hand twisting into hers, but she says nothing, not wanting to interrupt Lord Mace.

"Ser Wylis seemed not to want to share any information at all, although generous offers of accommodation were made. The moment Garse mentioned that he came from Highgarden, at the behest of both of Eddard Stark's daughters, however, Ser Wylis became most forthcoming."

Sansa squeezes Arya's fingers tight, sick with anticipation.

"During the audience, however, before Garse could receive any sort of confirmation as to your brother's presence or absence at White Harbour, they were interrupted."

The sickness turns, and Sansa nearly screams – what if Rickon was at White Harbour, and the Lannisters somehow discovered it and murdered him?!

"By a direwolf, girl," Lord Mace says urgently, taking her other hand and smiling as encouragingly as she suspects he knows how. "The beast took two of Garse's fingers – your brother's direwolf, girl!"


	30. Chapter 30

It is both a wonderful afternoon and a terrible one.

Wonderful, because Maester Lomys finally agrees to allow Willas to move onto his back, despite insisting that he could not do so even this morning. Willas is so relieved to be able to take a proper breath again that he laughs, just to prove he can, and then kisses Sansa until she cannot take a proper breath, until she's as red as her hair.

Terrible, because Sansa's brother is at White Harbour, and how is she supposed to remain with Willas when one of her brothers is alive and well and in the North even now?

"It is not forever," she says encouragingly, curled under his good arm and refusing to meet his eyes. "I will remain with Rickon until- until-"

"You may have to remain until he reaches his majority, my love," Willas points out. "He has seen how many name days? Six?"

"Six," she agrees miserably. "Ten years, Willas! They cannot expect us to remain apart for so long, can they?"

She does not say who they are, but he knows – her sister, her brother, those lords of the North still loyal to House Stark, whichever king emerges from the oncoming winter and the accompanying war the victor. All could order her to remain at Winterfell for as long as they feel her brother needs her, whether by outright edict or through the sort of emotional manipulation Willas knows Arya Stark to be capable of.

He feels sick at the thought of spending ten years without her. He can hardly stand the notion of ten days without her, how is he to manage half his life-span again alone?

"We will manage," he tells her. "Even if we are forced apart for that long, we will manage – we might visit one another, and we can write to each other as many letters as there are ravens enough to carry, and... I know not, Sansa."

"I don't want to leave you," she whispers, pressing her face into his shoulder, above the edge of the bandages winding around his torso. "I can hardly stand to think about being away from you for such a long time, Willas, it willkill me, I know it."

"No," he says sharply, terrified at notion of Sansa's death. "No, you must not allow anything to kill you, my darling, I could not bear your death."

"Nor I yours," she says plaintively, turning her face up to look at him once more. "What are we to do, Willas? I cannot abandon my brother to the care of strangers, not after all he must have suffered since last I saw him."

"And what of all you have suffered, Sansa?" he asks gently. "Sweetling, you must consider your own safety and health, your own sanity – they say Winterfell is near a ruin, after Theon Greyjoy and Ramsay Bolton's less than tender care. Will you be able to stand seeing it as such? Will you be able to bear being in the North with only your sister and one of your brothers? Will you be able to stand by while, by necessity, some of those who betrayed your brother and mother to their deaths are welcomed back to Winterfell?"

"I will do whatever I must," she says, her eyes huge and sad and firm and lost. "I am my mother's daughter as much as my father's, Willas, and she put a great deal of stock into the Tully words."

Family, Duty, Honour,Willas thinks, and he thinks they suit his wife better than Winter is Coming ever could.

"You are a Tyrell now, my sweet," he reminds her, tipping his nose against her own and teasing her in for a kiss, short and soft and pointed. "Remember to grow strong whilst doing your duty by your family – honour is worth nothing to the dead."

* * *

Willas' youngest uncle, Ser Humfrey Hightower, is both nothing and everything that Sansa expected. He was absent from Oldtown when Willas brought her to meet his grandfather and Ser Baelor, and so she is near as unprepared for Ser Humfrey as Arya.

He has that same almost sharp-featured face as Ser Baelor, as Lady Alerie and sort of like Willas, who seems more like his father now that Sansa has seen Lord Mace smile genuinely and frown in concern, now that she has seen him and Willas together for more than a moment at a time. Ser Humfrey is, Sansa thinks, the most handsome of Lord Leyton's sons, smiling and confident and easy in his beauty, with a thick shock of fair hair and bright, bright eyes.

She likes him immediately, if only because her first impression comes in the form of him stretched out on Willas' bed alongside her husband, his boots off and his arms folded behind his head as he regales his nephew with tales of Lys, where his sister apparently resides.

"- like a highly paid whore, if truth be told, but she seems happy enough, and it seems to be a position of some honour and renown in Lys, so Father said to leave her to it – ah, this must be the famous Lady Sansa!" he exclaims, bounding to his stocking-clad feet and sweeping an extravagent bow. "An honour and a pleasure, my lady, truly a pleasure – I have heard so much about you! My father was extremely taken, which is an achievement if only because he loathes most everyone not a Hightower by blood."

"Ser Humfrey," she says demurely, curtsying as low as required – it is a strange thing, to be officially of higher rank than this man who is so much, even after just these few moments, and so to need only curtsy just enough to acknowledge him and no more. "The honour is mine."

"And the pleasure surely yours alone, fool," Willas calls hoarsely, and though there are black-dark circles around his eyes, he is grinning. "Sit down, Humfrey, you're bothering my wife."

"I am not!" Ser Humfrey booms, settling gently back down on the bed beside Willas and then making a great show of folding his arms huffily. "I am merely introducing myself – I cannot help my innately exuberant nature, nephew."

Sansa takes her customary place on the edge of the bed at Willas' hip, so she might hold his hand, and does her best to hide a smile – they bicker as Willas does with Garlan, as she remembers Robb bickering with Jon, and such a normal thing warms her when thoughts of her upcoming journey chill her to the bone.

"I have asked something of Humfrey," Willas says, bringing her hand to his mouth, pausing a long moment with her knuckles pressed to his lips. "I would have him care for the most precious thing in my life when I cannot."

Sansa's mind goes to Gardener, and she wonders at that – the idea of Willas allowing anyone but himself to ride his beloved horse is laughable, after all – before he speaks again.

"I would have him go north with you, my lady," he says, looking up to meet her gaze with earnest, near desperate eyes. It frightens her for a brief moment, that intensity, but then she realises that she is holding his hand hard enough that it must be hurting him, and she feels as if she is drowning at the thought of being apart from him, for ten years for such a long time. "I would have him guard you when I am stuck here without you. He will ensure that no harm comes to you – I would send Garlan, but my father needs Garlan."

"I- I would be honoured to have Ser Humfrey with me," she says, confused – Lady Alerie implied that Ser Humfrey was coming to Highgarden for Willas' benefit, and Sansa assumed that he was to command the guard here while the majority of the men were away. "But Willas, surely you will be as great a target as I? Would Ser Humfrey not be better served-"

"One of his bastard cousins will keep an eye on Willas for us both, my lady, have no fear of that," Ser Humfrey says easily, rolling onto his front and leaning up on Willas' chest the way Sansa herself sometimes does when they talk before sleeping, although it does not seem quite so affectionate or intimate – and he jumps away the moment he remembers Willas' current infirmity, rolling somehow to his knees. "Regardless of any horror stories my siblings or their children may have told you, I am not a terrible companion, and I am more than capable of wielding my sword, which I suspect is my dear eldest nephew's primary concern."

"Bastard," Willas grumbles. "I'll have your balls if you try to become overly companionable with my wife, Humfrey, you see if I don't."

"And here I thought incest the purview of Lannisters and Targaryens," Humfrey teases, "and buggery to be more Loras' habit than yours – what an enlightening evening this is proving to be!"

* * *

Arya stares at Gendry in amazement.

"What do you mean, staying here?" she demands. "You know full well you can't stay here, stupid, you have to-"

"I have an honest living here," he says, shrugging. "The smith is good, the board and lodgings are the best I've ever known, and I'm getting paid more in a week than I'd see in a year if I came back north with you, m'lady – and I can be eyes and ears here in Highgarden, that'll be a help-"

"It might be if you could write enough to send reports," she snarls, shoving against his chest. "You were sent to escort Sansa and me back north with Lady Brienne-"

"But because you didn't manage to sneak her out, you'll have an escort of Tyrell men with you the whole way," he points out. "They'll be better at looking after her than I would, won't they? And you'll get her north easier if you've a whole bunch of men loyal to her-"

"That's not the point!" Arya fumes, and she's so angry that she can hardly stand it – she thinks, no, she knows that she is overreacting, but she was so genuinely afraid that Sansa would choose to stay with her beloved husband rather than come north to Rickon, to home, that Gendry's decision to remain at Highgarden has left her feeling confused and almost sick – she was so certain that he would return with them! Gods, Alla has offered to accompany them, but Gendry, who has a life further north than here, is refusing to do so!

* * *

Sansa is off with Mother and, Willas thinks, Father, discussing provisions and protection for the long journey ahead of her, likely with Grandmother somewhere nearby, offering her advice on how to keep control of a bunch of strong-headed men, when her sister sneaks through the door of his bedchamber and sits very calmly on the footboard of his bed.

"I need to know if Sansa has picked up any habits that will put her in danger on our journey," she says without preamble, something he likes about her. He thinks her forthrightness will serve her and Sansa both well, in the days to come, and he cannot truly dislike something that may be good for Sansa. "Anything at all that may endanger her in any way."

"Her compassion," he says simply, shrugging and immediately regretting it – anything at all that causes his back to move is painful, even through the haze of poppy. Humfrey is sitting under the window, on the floor, for some reason, and watching Lady Arya curiously – Willas has a sneaking suspicion that she reminds him of Lynesse. Every young girl who is even vaguely unhappy seems to. "She may try to help where she cannot, and will give herself away by it – be practical on her behalf, my lady, and she ought not cause you much trouble."

Lady Arya stares hard at him, as if trying to understand something difficult, and he sets aside his book.

"I believe we have needlessly made enemies of one another," he says thoughtfully, watching her with as much interest as she regards him with at all times. "For all that we see it as two wholly different things, I do believe that we both want only what is best for Sansa, yes?"

"I suppose."

"Then let us call a truce, my lady," he offers. "If you will protect Sansa for me – from herself as much as from those who might want her dead – then I will see that every possible help that is mine to offer will be the North's, regardless of whether or not you prevail in convincing Sansa to divorce me. Would that content you?"

She looks suspicious now, and he wonders what he is supposed to do to earn anything but her distaste.

"Why should you offer the North help even if Sansa is not your wife?"

"A number of reasons," he says, thinking of how closely it would bind them to the Reach and, through the Reach, Prince Aegon's cause, by obligation. "But primarily because I love Sansa, and I would see her happy even if she does not love me."

* * *

It takes just three weeks for all the preparations to be completed.

Sansa can hardly believe it – it seems only yesterday that she was arriving at Highgarden, terrified at the thought of marrying a stranger, but in reality she has had two years, give or take, to come to know and love her strange husband.

He looks just as lost as she feels, in this awful moment.

"I wish I did not have to go," she whispers, holding his hand tighter and moving closer, if that is possible. "But I must."

"But you must," he agrees, eyes bright and voice heavy. "Would that I could at least accompany you, my love, but with Father and Garlan riding out with the prince, there must be one of us here to rule Highgarden."

"And your health would not allow for it either," she points out, resting her free hand on his bandages, over his heart. It is beating strong and steady, and the tears lingering in her eyes spill over at the feeling she had feared lost so short a time ago. "I wish I could stay to help you recover."

"Your brother needs you," he reminds her, albeit reluctantly. "I daresay every man and woman in the North still loyal to House Stark has need of you just now, Sansa – you must be everything I know you to be for them. It is... They need you more than I, Sansa, for all that I know that I want you more than they ever could."

She leans in and kisses him, hard and fast, and she relishes the tight pull of his fingers in her hair and the sharp edge of his teeth on her lip, and then she pulls away and runs for the door. If she does not leave him now, she will never do so, and she knows that he is right – she is needed elsewhere, no matter that both he and she would rather she might stay at Highgarden with him forever and a day.

"I love you," she calls from the door, backing out quickly and blowing him a kiss. "Be better, Willas, for me – heal, darling."

* * *

"I love you," he calls after her, watching the end of her braid swing as she darts away, feeling as if he cannot breathe. Humfrey is lingering by the foot of his bed, fingers tapping the seven-pointed star pommel of his sword.

"I will keep her safe for you," he promises quietly. "She'll come home, Willas – she's just as dotty for you as you are for her. She'll come home."

Willas will never admit it aloud, but he fears that Sansa is going home now, and that once there, she will never want to leave.


End file.
